


Fur and Feathers (The Way We Fit Together)

by Roadie



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Compliant, Endgame Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, F/F, Fix-It, Homophobia, Maggie Sawyer Backstory, POV Maggie Sawyer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-01-31 05:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12675393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadie/pseuds/Roadie
Summary: Maggie had ordered her drink when she arrived because she needed something to give her license to occupy the table. She’d hoped that when Alex arrived, she’d still be waiting for her drink to be delivered. She’d have the card in front of her, showing that she’d just arrived, on-time but not over-eager. She’d be able to say, go ahead and order something, have them tack it onto the jack of clubs, removing some of the pressure over whether Maggie should have ordered for her, because they’d have arrived so close together.Or, the mostly canon-compliant Sanvers fix-it where they also have daemons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I am The Most Extra because it wasn't enough for me to think, "I'm gonna write a fix-it." No, no. I had to go, "I'm gonna write a fix-it wherein _they also have daemons_ " because why the fuck not?
> 
> And _then_ I was like, actually, while I'm at it, let's just make this into a whole background story about Maggie finding and losing and losing and finding families, in addition to a fix-it, _and also with daemons_ , because, you know, _why the fuck not?!?_
> 
> Sidenote: Maggie's backstory with her father is also different from canon in this fic, because I started writing it before 3x03 aired and I decided I didn't want to rewrite it to align with shitty canon (not that my version is inherently less shitty--it actually reflects a more potent neglect than canon Maggie experienced tbh--but anyway.)
> 
> I've taken the idea of daemons from Philip Pullman's _His Dark Materials_ trilogy -- or the first book, anyway, which is all I've read so far. I'm also somewhat inspired by [this amazing fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7378912/chapters/16761718) which is in a fandom I don't follow but the fic is so good that it doesn't even matter.
> 
>  
> 
> **A little background on daemons for those who aren't familiar:**
> 
>  
> 
> Every person has a daemon that takes the shape of an animal. The person and their daemon share a soul; they are fundamentally a single being.
> 
> Normally, a person's daemon is of the opposite gender of the person themselves (ie, women have male daemons and vice versa). (Yes, this is gender-essentialist and silly... I like to imagine that genderfluid and genderqueer and nonbinary people have daemons who are "opposite" to whatever their individual gender is at any particular time. At this point, I don't anticipate engaging with that directly in this fic, though if I can come up with a good narrative reason, that could change.)
> 
> In childhood, daemons can change shape freely per the needs and moods of their person, but around puberty, they settle into an animal shape that they keep for the rest of their life. That shape reflects something fundamental about who the person is.
> 
> It causes great pain for a person and their daemon to be physically more than a few feet apart unless they have put great training and practice into it (or if they're a witch, but that's not relevant in this fic).
> 
> There is a powerful taboo against touching another person's daemon. To have your daemon touched by another person generally causes you to feel nausea, revulsion, and disgust.
> 
> Daemons talk to each other, but they rarely talk to people who are not their own person.
> 
> Additional disclaimer: this fic is a true WIP, unlike the last two I posted, but I have more than 10,000 words written and don't anticipate that the fic will go over 20,000 at the absolute max. But I wanted to start posting before the fandom scattered to the four winds.

Eduardo sits beside Maggie’s chair, his front paws up on her lap. She cards through the fur of his head, running her fingernails down his scalp.

“She agreed to come,” he says gently.

Maggie nods. “I know.”

“That has to mean something.”

“I _know,”_ Maggie repeats.

The wolverine sets his chin down on his paws, a pleasant warmth and weight on her thigh.

Maggie pulls out her phone and opens a text window to Sofia.

_At the café now, waiting for her. How are you?_

The reply comes almost immediately. _Good, im unpacking. Going to call my parents in a few mins. They want to hear about our new apartment_

_Good_ , Maggie texts back, _tell them I say hi._

_Kk._

A pause, then a buzz as another text comes in:

_U got this. See you later_

Maggie laughs a little, then clicks her phone’s power button to darken the screen, and turns it over.

She’s surprised that, in this moment, Sofia can make her feel better.

A waiter delivers Maggie’s coffee with a smile and takes away the marker -- a jack of clubs playing card in a little metal stand -- that let him know where to deliver it. His daemon, a little grey squirrel, bows with a flourish from the waiter’s tray as they turn to walk back to the counter.

Maggie sighs and sips her americano.

“I told you you should have ordered something more elaborate,” Eduardo says. “It would have taken longer to make.”

It’s true. Maggie had ordered her drink when she arrived because she needed something to give her license to occupy the table. She’d hoped that when Alex arrived, she’d still be waiting for her drink to be delivered. She’d have the card in front of her, showing that she’d just arrived, on-time but not over-eager. She’d be able to say, _go ahead and order something, have them tack it onto the jack of clubs_ , removing some of the pressure over whether Maggie should have ordered for her, because they’d have arrived so close together.

Maggie isn’t even sure what Alex’s order is anymore. She used to drink red-eyes -- a habit she’d never broken after her hung-over days in graduate school. Maggie had always told her that her heart would thank her for scaling back on the caffeine.

“Never did understand where you, of all people, got off giving advice about the heart,” Eduardo tuts, and Magge’s fist tightens in his fur.

 

\--

 

Maggie was fourteen when her daemon settled.

It was late. Not scandalously so, but it’s more common for daemons to settle by twelve or thirteen. For girls, it tends to coincide roughly with the first period, and Maggie had had hers for almost two years when Eduardo changed for the last time.

Maggie thought then, and still thinks, that the tension between Eduardo and herself might be rooted, somehow, in the brutality of that final change. He'd been a jackrabbit for so long at that point, more than six months, that she, and everyone else, had thought he'd settled there. Maggie had been happy enough with the idea: everyone dreamed of a glamorous daemon, a panther or a lion or a wolf, but the jackrabbit made people smile when they looked at him, just as Maggie could make people smile, and he could hop alongside her when she ran the hundred-yard dash at school, and he could sit on her lap or on her desk during classes and not be in the way.

Perhaps most importantly, he fit nicely curled up with Eliza’s daemon, a sleek, snow-white cat named Erasmus. They would groom each other when she and Eliza did each other’s makeup, and hide each others’ faces with their little paws (Eduardo would sometimes use a long ear, if he felt cheeky) during the scariest parts of the horror movies, and would stand watch together when Eliza and Maggie wanted to sneak forbidden cigarettes or sips of beer.

He'd have been happy, she still thinks, being a jackrabbit for the rest of their life.

But then February, in Nebraska.

February, in Nebraska, and Maggie standing at the foot of the walkway of her parents’ home (not her home, not anymore), with Eduardo curled up against her chest, inside her parka. Maggie, with her hood pulled up against the brutal, freezing cold because they hadn't given her time to grab a hat, with her hands fisted in her coat pockets because she'd forgotten to grab her mittens from where she'd left them by the back door. Maggie, with her gym bag stuffed with clothes and her backpack stuffed with school, standing in the dark sky of the evening, knowing it was only going to get colder and so she'd better find somewhere to go for the night, but she didn’t know where, doesn't know how--

(Grown-up Maggie is pretty sure the fear and the cold of that night are the reason she moved, upon first opportunity, to a warmer climate.)

Eduardo shuffled, moving inside her coat, and she opened the zipper to let him out. He leaped down into the pile of shoveled snow by her feet.

Behind them, the living room light turned off, and they found themselves in darkness broken only by the moon. Maggie’s despair surged to new heights, to new panic.

And then Eduardo changed.

He’d changed thousands, millions of times before and it had never been like this; it had always been smooth and easy if sometimes a little frantic, as subtle as changing your mind or changing your mood: he’s one thing, and then he’s another. But that time Maggie felt it in her own body with a sickening twist, a tug on her heart and stomach as though they were trying to change places with one another.

And then Eduardo was a wolverine.

“Let's start walking,” he said, and then he set off. But Maggie stood still, her legs frozen, until Eduardo was four steps ahead, five steps, and the bond started to tug; ten steps and it ached, twelve steps and it seared like a scalding hand wrapped around her heart and pulling and then, finally, she tumbled after him, the pain relieved as she tripped through the snow and came close enough to touch him again.

She wished he’d stayed smaller, so she could feel his warmth against her while she walked. But she did feel safer with him like this: long claws, sharp teeth, a stance to intimidate.

They walked all the way into town, almost five miles, and when they arrived it was late and Maggie couldn’t feel her fingertips or the peaks of her cheekbones and she still didn’t know where to go.

“The library, maybe,” Eduardo said. “Didn't we hear once that they don't lock the entrance hall?”

Maggie swallowed and nodded. The library was just a block away. She tried the door with thick, numb fingers and to her relief it opened, gasping warm air out into the cold night and Maggie fell into that warmth as though it were a hug.

The interior doors were locked. Maggie sat and leaned against the wall between the outer and inner doors, her bags on one side of her and Eduardo on the other. She wished he’d curl up with her, lay himself over her hands to warm them, but instead he sat beside her, not quite touching, vigilant in his attention to their surroundings.

She didn’t sleep. She couldn’t.

In the morning she changed clothes in the school bathroom, early. Then she stashed her duffel bag in her locker and sat in the empty cafeteria to try to get some homework done before class since she hadn't touched any of it the night before. Eduardo sat beside her, silently keeping watch. Her stomach rumbled and for the first time she noticed how hungry she was: she hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. In her gym bag, she scraped together enough change for a nutrigrain bar from a vending machine. That would have to tide her over until lunch, which, thank goodness, she got for free.

The thought of that -- her free cafeteria meal -- had been a cause for shame at moments in her past, but now, it gave her more relief than she could ever have imagined it would.

The warning bell rang and she gathered her things, packed them up in her backpack and re-entered the crowded hallway. Nobody looked at her in the senior hallway, but when she turned down the freshman hallway she felt more eyes on her than she expected.

Not everyone could possibly know, already, could they?

Eduardo walked alongside her, his hackles raised as he met the gazes of the other children and their daemons.

That’s what they were seeing, Maggie realized.

“I wish you hadn’t changed,” she muttered to him. “This is bad enough without everyone thinking my daemon hasn’t even settled yet. Couldn’t you have just stayed what you were?”

“No,” he said simply, “I couldn’t.”

In the morning, in the passing periods, she heard whispers, noticed the sidelong glances, the daemons of the less-subtle students scampering over to inspect Eduardo like some kind of oddity.

“Calm down,” her second period math teacher said, her parakeet daemon bristling from her shoulder, “it’s like you’ve never seen a daemon change shape before, honestly!”

She crossed paths with Eliza in the lunchroom.

Eliza didn’t look at her, and Erasmus scampered up to perch on her shoulder, bathing himself haughtily and only once glancing down at Eduardo like an inferior creature.

And it turned out that wasn’t even the low point of her day.

The low point happened when she realized that, by the end of lunch, her entire grade knew what had happened with Eliza, and now they were whispering about how her daemon hadn’t settled because she was a freak, because she was broken, because _did you hear what she did_ , because she was dirty and a sinner and repulsive.

A boy, a star baseball player, taunted her as she was leaving after school.

“Come on, Maggie, if you wish you had a cock, I can give you mine, freakshow!”

His yellow lab daemon snarled at Eduardo but wagged her tail, like it was all a joke.

Eduardo sat up on his haunches, flexed his claws and flashed his teeth at her. “Don’t even try it,” he hissed, and it was enough to make her retreat.

Maggie spent that night in the library again, and by then she was so exhausted and hungry that she managed to sleep a little, slumped against the wall.

The next day, Mr. Liu, her history teacher -- a young, athletic Asian man with thick-framed glasses, the soccer coach and the teacher all the girls liked to swoon over -- asked her to stay after class at the end of the day.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked. His daemon, an iguana, squinted down at Eduardo from her place on his desk.

“Nothing,” Maggie said.

Mr. Liu frowned at her, not unkindly. “You know, one of the weirdest things I’ve come to realize since I started teaching high school is that you guys,” he gestured vaguely as if to encompass the whole building, “seem to think that we teachers are oblivious to everything that happens here if it doesn’t happen in the classroom.”

Eduardo snarled vaguely at the iguana, who didn’t flinch. Maggie curled her fingers into his fur and looked away.

Mr. Liu tried another tack. “A wolverine, eh?”

Maggie shrugged.

“They say they’re the strongest animal on the planet, pound for pound,” Mr. Liu offered.

Maggie shrugged again, eyes glued to the floor.

“Listen, Maggie,” Mr. Liu sighed. “I’m just gonna lay it out. I’ve heard what kids have been saying. And now Eduardo’s a wolverine when everyone thought he’d settled as a rabbit. So all I’m going to say is: I think what you did was really brave, and I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this fallout. And if you need a quiet place to take your lunch or anything, my door is always open to you. Okay?”

Maggie set her jaw resolutely. She clung so tightly to Eduardo’s fur that she worried she might hurt him, but he just shifted and stood up straighter.

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

Mr. Liu stood to walk her out of the classroom, and Maggie realized she had no idea where she’d be going to go except back to the library. She was hungry and had no way to get food before lunch tomorrow.

She was exhausted.

She wanted nothing more than to curl up around Eduardo in a corner and sleep for days.

But she was somehow, in that moment, terrified of touching him, Eduardo, beyond the cursory points of contact that she made without thinking. She was uncomfortable being near him, which was horrible when he was a part of her: like wanting to cleave out something deep, some fundamental part of her soul, and throw it away. But he seemed distant, somehow. Aloof. Like he wanted to do the same to her.

Even her daemon didn’t love her.

The words came out before she really thought about it.

“My parents kicked me out.”

Mr. Liu froze. “What?”

“My parents kicked me out. I’ve been sleeping in the entrance to the public library.”

She avoided his eye contact with all of her might. But she heard him take a shaky breath.

“Jesus,” he said lowly. “Maggie, I’m… come with me? Let’s go talk to Mrs. Parsons, okay?”

Mrs. Parsons, the guidance counselor, with her pot-bellied pig and her well-known membership in that wacko megachurch outside Omaha.

“I don’t think she’d want to help me.”

“I understand why you feel that way, but she’s the only one who knows who to call.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie said. Eduardo began to pad toward the classroom door. “We’ll work something out.”

“No,” Mr. Liu said, rushed. “What if -- what if I sat with you?”

Maggie swallowed.

“I won’t lie to you,” Mr. Liu continued, “I don’t know where Mrs. Parsons stands on gay people. But I know she does care a lot about the students here, and I know she has a job to help keep you safe and she takes that very seriously.”

Gay people. Maggie bristled.

“Don’t be like that,” Eduardo chastized her softly. “It’s what we are, isn’t it?"

He was right, of course. It was just that she hadn’t really… used the word, before this.  For herself.

“Okay,” she said nervously to Mr. Liu.

Mr. Liu sat with Maggie while she told Mrs. Parsons everything, leaving them only long enough to dash to the McDonald’s a block away and bring back a quarter-pounder and fries for her since the cafeteria was closed. They sat with her through the call to Child Protective Services. When she nervously admitted that she hadn’t called her aunt who lived in town (what reason did she have to think her father’s sister would behave differently from her father?), Mr. Liu made the call for her. And then he stood with her while she waited to be picked up.

She’d never been close to her Tia Rosa who was tall and cold and had some kind of tall, wiry-haired dog for her daemon. She met Maggie nervously, extending a hand for her duffel bag instead of reaching for a hug, but Cimarron, her daemon, betrayed her, padding over and nuzzling, gently, at Eduardo’s chin. Eduardo relaxed, and it made Maggie relax.

They followed her aunt to the car.

Eduardo never changed again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don’t know that I believe in the redeemability of Kara’s milquetoast douchebag boyfriend."

Maggie sees Curie before she sees Alex herself. Curie, a peregrine falcon, flies just above Alex’s head: a preference that helps in the field, Alex knows, because Curie can see further than Alex can from up there.

A small group of patrons has gathered near the door, so Maggie can’t see Alex until Alex manages to weave her way through them.

“What are we going to say? Eduardo mutters, “We should have planned this out better.”

“Hush,” Maggie whispers. “It’s just Alex and coffee. Come on.”

But her heart is racing.

And when Alex finally emerges, in the same style of jeans and sweater and leather jacket she used to wear, Maggie does stop breathing, just for a moment.

“Keep your tongue in your mouth,” Eduardo grits, but he sits up anyway, lifting his paws and chin off her lap. Curie swoops a few feet ahead of Alex and dives down over Eduardo in greeting, a gust of wind over the top of his head, but when he lifts a paw, long claw extended for her to perch upon like she used to, she ignores it, looping back around to perch on Alex’s shoulder instead.

“Maggie,” Alex greets as she approaches.

Maggie stands up, jostling her chair a little. She isn’t sure what to do. It’s been four years. Should they hug? Shake hands?

She has lines, faint ones, that she didn’t have before at the corners of her eyes, like she’s been smiling. And she’s stopped dying her hair that reddish color she used to like. Her hair is chin-length, still, but dark brown, and cut into more of a shag.

God, she’s still so beautiful.

And when she gets close enough, it becomes clear that Alex doesn’t know what to do, either. So they stand in front of each other for the briefest moment, a fraction of a second, before Eduardo nudges Maggie’s calf. Maggie holds her breath and opens her arms, all quickly enough that the awkward pause can almost be overlooked, and Alex smiles and opens her arms as well, stepping into Maggie’s body.

She feels the same. Firm, warm.

“I uh,” Maggie gestures vaguely at her coffee, “this just arrived a second ago, I thought about ordering for you, but -- I don’t know, are red-eyes still your thing?”

Alex smiles. “I’ve cut back. I hear the caffeine is bad for my heart.”

Maggie’s own heart stutters, just a little, her jaw dropping before she can stop it. She laughs to cover it up. “Nerd.”

“I’ll, um” Alex smiles, “I’ll be back.” She gestures vaguely toward the counter.

Maggie nods and sits down, watching Alex walk away.

“That was a good start,” Eduardo says, leaning on her thigh again.

“Yeah,” Maggie says. “Yeah, it was.”

 

\--

 

Maggie pretty much fell in lust with Alex the first time she saw her.

She strode into Maggie’s crime scene like she owned it, the damn falcon flying far above her head in an obvious power move, not only by the way she could see the whole perimeter from up there, but by the distance it put between human and daemon. They had to have worked at that, Maggie thought. They had to have practiced it, for the daemon to be able to fly so high up without either of them being crippled by the pain of distance.

Then the falcon dive-bombed Eduardo, talons open and sharp. Eduardo curled his lip and raised his hackles, snarling quietly.

Not for the first time, Maggie was grateful for her wolverine daemon at work.

(It’s illegal to profile people by their daemons when making hiring decisions, but the laws are hard to enforce when employers can argue that they’re looking for certain personality types and they can’t help that those personality types tend to align with certain types of daemons. At the precinct, not a single cop has a daemon that doesn’t have the capacity to look threatening. Lots of big cats, wild dogs, a python, a scorpion, a crocodile, three birds of prey including one goddamn bald eagle and Maggie isn’t sure what it means that she can’t stand that guy, a boar with some gnarly-looking tusks. Her wolverine. The tamest-looking daemon on the force is probably that one horse over in the sex crimes division, which kind of makes sense since that woman’s job involves talking to a lot of really scared, vulnerable people, and for all that the stallion can terrify the shit out of perps when the situation calls for it, he can also turn straight Black Beauty with the lashes and the soft eyes and help people feel safe.)

(The wolverine is not, in fact, the strongest animal in the world, pound-for-pound. It’s not even the strongest animal in the weasel family. Maggie looked it up, as a kid, when Eduardo had stayed in that shape long enough for her to be sure that he’d settled there. But still, people think they are, and he _can_ look fearsome when he wants to. Maggie’s pretty sure that she never would have been accepted into the Academy with a jackrabbit.)

When she and Alex had known each other a few weeks, had become friends, before that brief period when Maggie became afraid to date her, Maggie asked about how far away Curie could fly.

Alex laughed and rolled her eyes in self-deprecation, looking down into her beer. They’d finished another round of pool that Maggie had lost and Maggie had refused to play the sore loser by insisting on buying them PBR. So she bought them good beer: a decent microbrew from upstate.

“I wish I could say we had worked at it, a little further every day over time or whatever, but it was actually kind of a horrible accident,” Alex explained. “I used to surf a lot when I was a teenager. Curie spent so much time as a porpoise when I was twelve and thirteen, I thought she might settle that way. The thought didn’t even scare me, that I’d have to live on a boat or whatever. But in the end, she settled here, which worked out well because she’d just fly with me when I surfed, riding the air currents.”

(Later, months later, Alex would explain that Curie had turned into a falcon the first time Kara had taken her flying, and was still in that shape when, the same night, Hank Henshaw had come and taken her father away, and she’d stayed that way ever since.)

“I went out one day when I probably shouldn’t have. The waves were too tall to be safe. And I fell, and got caught in a rip current and tugged way out into deep water so fast that she couldn’t keep up. It sort of… jerked on our bond and stretched it out like a piece of old elastic. There was no tightening it up again. It was the most painful, terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. For two weeks, we wouldn’t let each other go, like we were afraid that this… freedom of movement from one another could translate into us losing our connection. But it didn’t. Everything was fine. And now I have a daemon who can fly thirty, forty feet over my head, and I can use that to scare the people I need to scare. Like I scared you, that first day.”

Maggie scoffed. “You didn’t scare me.”

“Eduardo was freaked out. You can’t lie to me.”

“Nothing freaks Eduardo out. Nothing freaks me out, either.” She was a little drunk on that decent microbrew. Maybe. Possibly. “You two just pissed us off.”

Eduardo and Curie listed a little into one another.

Maggie was probably definitely drunk and Alex, gauging by the state of her daemon, was too, though you could never tell it by looking at her directly.

“It was my crime scene, Danvers,” Maggie snarked.

“Was. Then it wasn’t anymore.”

“Only because I gave it to you.”

“Right. You keep telling yourself that, Sawyer.”

It took until later -- weeks, months later -- for Maggie to realize that that crime scene had been only the first of many things she would give to Alex and not be able to take back.

 

\--

 

Alex returns to the table with a large mug of herbal tea that Maggie can instantly identify as rooibos by smell alone.

Scent is the most powerful trigger of memories, and this transports her with a violent tug to Alex’s kitchen (her old kitchen? Does she still live in that same place where they’d lived together?), to brewing herself a mug and then ignoring it in favor of tequila. Her hand tightens into a fist in her lap and Eduardo nuzzles at it, encouraging her to relax. When she does, he noses under it, urging her hand back up onto the top of his head where she runs her fingers over his scalp, a self-soothing technique she’s used since she was fourteen.

She’d been on a rooibos kick when she’d lived with Alex but hasn’t drunk it since, filling that void with peppermint and chamomile.

“Wow,” she says, tipping her chin at Alex’s mug, “things have changed, haven’t they?”

Alex shrugs. “My blood pressure was high. Hamilton told me in no uncertain terms that it would need to come down if I wanted to still be eligible for fieldwork by the time I was 40. So, you know. Less caffeine. Less salt, too. I eat a lot less takeout.”

Maggie can’t help but laugh at that. She makes a show of leaning forward over the table and squinting. “You look like Alex Danvers,” she says, in faux-concern. She leans down and looks under the table. “You don’t look like you’re starving, either. Are you sure you’re not a fembot?”

“Hey,” Alex laughs, “I can learn to cook. I’ll have you know I make a mean eggplant parmesan. I learned a lot from Mon-el, to be honest.”

“Oh, God, is he still in the picture? Does he suck less than he used to?”

Alex rolls her eyes and shrugs. “I guess. A bit.”

Maggie narrows her eyes, and Alex wilts a bit. “Kara loves him,” she says, more than a little defensively, “and, I mean, he loves her, too. He just… has to learn how to live by the moral codes of the planet he lives on now. That’s kind of why I asked him for cooking lessons, honestly. It was an excuse to keep an eye on him. Try to teach him the things he doesn’t really want to learn.”

Maggie can only shake her head. “I met three escaped Daxamite slaves in Gotham, you know.”

Alex says nothing, but on her shoulder, Curie ruffles her feathers a bit.

“With what they lived through, I don’t know that I believe in the redeemability of Kara’s milquetoast douchebag boyfriend.”

“I thought you thought anyone could be redeemable, Ms. Due Process and Ms. How Can You Hold These Prisoners Without Trial and Ms. If We Don’t Believe People Can Get Better Then Why Do We Even Have A Justice System.”

“You’ve got to want to be redeemed, Danvers, and not just because your girlfriend tells you you should. I never saw that in that dude.”

“I know,” Alex sighs. “I know. You know I never liked him, and I finally got up the guts to tell Kara I didn’t like him, but I can’t force her to break up with him so instead I’m trying to teach him to be less of a jerk.” Alex rolls her shoulders and wraps her fingers more tightly around her mug. “Enough about that, anyway. How are you? This,” she gestures at the way Eduardo is leaning into Maggie’s thighs, “is new to me.”

Maggie smiles, her fingers deep in Eduardo’s fur.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Man, I remember being sixteen,” he said, with a soft laugh. “Been living with those adult hormones for just long enough to feel like you’re controlling them instead of them controlling you. Your daemon hasn’t changed for a few years so you think that you’re done growing. But it doesn’t work like that. You still got so much to learn about yourself that you won’t know until you learn it, you know?”

Eduardo kept a measured distance from Maggie from the moment they stepped out of her aunt’s car, the afternoon when they arrived at her house for the first time. He walked a few feet in front of her, hackles up the whole time, scowling occasionally at the dog. Inside the house, Maggie hung her coat in the closet and placed her boots tidily on the mat while Eduardo cleaned his paws and avoided her gaze.

Her Tia cleared her throat uncomfortably. “I, um. I’ll need to put some sheets on the fold-out in the study upstairs. I’m sorry, it’s, it’s not the most comfortable, but I think I can get a real bed from one of the girls at work. And we can, um, maybe we can go shopping for some posters or something on the weekend. Do you like posters?”

It was a strange question. Sort of like “How’s school?,” it was the kind of question adults asked teens when they didn’t know what else to say. She’d known her Tia Rosa her entire life, but not that well, considering how near they lived to one another. They just weren’t close, her father had said. They’d never needed to see one another very often.

“Sure,” she said, “I like posters.” Her room at home had a No Doubt poster and a Third Eye Blind poster and her parents had always hated them both but they let her have them anyway. This time, she thought, she’d go for something different. A star chart, maybe, or a map of the world, or one of those posters that had pictures of all the different species of whales.

Tia Rosa made them a quick dinner of spaghetti with Prego sauce, and Maggie thought she shouldn’t be hungry after the McDonald’s from Mr. Liu but she was, she was famished. Eduardo sat a few feet away from her while she ate, his body facing away from her and toward the hallway that lead to the front door.

That night, she lay under an unfamiliar quilt on a fold-out that creaked when she moved, and Eduardo put himself between her and the door, his head turned away and staring at the light that seeped in from the hallway through the gap underneath.

She pulled the quilt tight but she was still cold; the apartment was old and there was a draft coming through the window. She heard her aunt talking on the phone from downstairs, and she was sure wasn’t supposed to hear, but there was only a thin door and a flight of stairs between them.

“I don’t know what to do, Jen,” Tia was saying, “I never signed up to be a parent, and suddenly I have a teenager… no, it’s permanent. Yeah, I’m positive, a social worker’s supposed to call me tomorrow… you’d understand if you knew Oscar, he’s not gonna… no, it’s more like, he’s a shoot first and ask questions later kind of guy.” A sigh, but then a grunt, something like indignation. “No, no way. She’s my  _ blood _ , Jen. We haven’t been close but I’m not letting my own niece go into  _f_ _oster care_ if I can prevent it. She’s good kid. Bit of a rebellious streak from what Oscar’s said, but that’s… right, just a few years. Anyway, I’m telling you all this because I’m gonna--I hate to say this, we’re going to need to rethink the trip to Gotham in June. I just, I don’t know if the finances are gonna… right.”

Maggie cringed. 

Eduardo lay a foot away from her on the bed, not touching her. She desperately wanted to feel him close, wanted his fur and his body up against her back, warming her, but he stayed resolutely far away, tense, ignoring her and focusing on the door.

Tentatively, she reached out and touched his head. Her fingernails were growing long, Eliza (Eliza, Eliza) having convinced her to stop biting them, and she dragged them down his scalp. 

After a minute or so, he began to relax into her touch. And as he relaxed, she felt herself relax, sinking into the squeaky, pokey mattress. She tucked her knees up closer to her chest but her calves loosened, less overwhelmed by the cold, and finally, she slept.

Her aunt remained stiff and awkward but, over the next few weeks, she helped Maggie turn the study into a bedroom. She worked in the office at the middle school and one of her coworkers gave her a twin bed that used to belong to her eldest son who had left for college; it was a little saggy and worn but it was comfortable. They bought pictures for her walls: a star-chart, a world map, a Yeah Yeah Yeahs poster. She took Maggie to Applebee’s to “celebrate” when her guardianship was finalized and official. They didn’t have anything to talk about so Maggie awkwardly talked about her homework and dodged questions about her non-existent friends and didn’t mention that she ate almost every lunch in Mr. Liu’s classroom. The tall shaggy-haired dog looked at her with soft eyes and Eduardo glared back at him from his spot beside Maggie in the booth, where he did not touch her.

But she ran her fingernails over his scalp every night before bed, and it soothed her in the way he wouldn’t sooth her himself. He arched into her touch, his eyes drifting closed, and she felt her own eyes drift close with him, her body going heavy into her mattress.

She’d lived with Tia Rosa for a year when Tia Rosa started spending time with a man named AJ. AJ was from Atlanta, and didn’t speak Spanish, and his last name was Sawyer, so she was surprised when he told her he was Dominican -- or his parents were, anyway.

“My grandpa’s last name was Suarez,” he said, “but my parents were very, you know, if you’re going to be American, be American. Speak English, don’t have a last name people can’t pronounce, all that shit, so my dad changed his name and my parents only spoke English to me as a kid. I get pissed off about it sometimes, to be honest, but anyway, here I am. I keep saying I’ll take some Spanish classes one day.”

AJ had broad shoulders and a broad body and a bald head. He smiled easily. His daemon, a gorilla, had piercing, thoughtful eyes. He moved to Nebraska to take a good job as a foreman for a farm equipment manufacturer, and he and Rosa met at the Hy-Vee checkout line and, according to him, had a near-instant connection.

He was around a lot after they start dating, in the evenings and the mornings, and he followed Rosa’s lead in talking to Maggie. He was always polite to her, always nice, if never especially warm.

He’d been around for six months or so when he knocked on the door, one Tuesday during the summer vacation when Maggie had the day off from her summer job at the Hy-Vee. She answered and he was there looking casual, in basketball shoes and baggy shorts and a tank top that tugged a little over his stomach.

“Tia’s not here,” she said, “she’s at work.”

“I know.” He smiled and held up a pair of baseball gloves. “Do you play catch?”

She used to, with her dad, but not since then. She shrugged.

“I thought maybe we could play,” he said, smiling. 

He’d never shown any real interest in her, beyond what he had to at the dinner table. He’d been… quiet. Respectful. Always nice enough.

“Or go for a walk or something?” he tried, his demeanor faltering, just a little. “Just to hang, maybe, for a bit.” It was enough to tug on Maggie’s sympathies.

“Catch is good,” she said. “Just let me leave a note for Tia.”

They walked to a park a short distance away. “I’ve known you for six months,” AJ said, after awhile, “But I feel like I don’t know you at all.” He asked her about all kinds of things: her favorite music (alternative), her favorite food (her mama’s pork mole enchiladas, but she didn’t say that; she said chicken wings), her favorite movies (probably The Matrix, though she didn’t say it was because she has a crush on Trinity). What she wanted to do after high school (college, definitely college). Where she dreamed of ending up in her life (...no idea).

It was the most interest anyone had taken in her in a long time. And somehow, in the rhythm of the ball connecting with each of their gloves in turn, she found herself pouring her answers out to him. He ribbed her over her music (“I gotta get you into some of that good dirty south hip-hop!”) but was pleased with her choice in movies (“You a red pill or blue pill kind of person, Maggie?”).

After awhile they stopped, sweating under the afternoon sun, and they walked to the Dairy Queen and he bought them each a soft-serve. The girl who was working the window graduated from Maggie’s school last year. She was tall and made of soft curves and her hair had been dyed blue at some point but now was just a faintly-stained platinum with dark roots. The edge of a tattoo peeked out from the open neck of her polo-style uniform shirt -- that was new since Maggie last saw her. 

Maggie thought she was beautiful. Had always thought she was beautiful. 

She smiled at Maggie when she handed her her cone, and Maggie tried not to blush.

As she walked toward one of the metal tables on the edge of the parking lot, baseball glove tucked under one elbow, she was the happiest she’d felt in awhile. Even Eduardo began to walk with a bit of a spring in his step, looking fondly over at Suzanne, the gorilla.

“Listen,” AJ said, as they ate their ice cream, elbows on the hot, flaking paint of the table, “I want to ask you something. But I hope you can keep it a secret. Is that okay?”

Maggie’s spine straightened.

When was the last time anyone really  _ trusted  _ her?

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded seriously. “Your aunt told me just… a little bit about your life. Not much. Just that you’ve only been living with her for a little while because something happened so you couldn’t live with your parents anymore.”

Maggie froze, just for a second, and then took another bite from her cone. She nodded, avoiding eye contact.

“I just…” he swallowed, and looked strangely nervous. “I want to marry Rosa,” he said.

Maggie felt her eyebrows shoot up. She had no idea what she’d been expecting to hear, but it certainly wasn’t  _ that _ . 

“But me marrying her, it would mean you and me, we’d be becoming family too,” he continued. “We’d be living together, doing family things together, going to Atlanta to spend Christmas with my parents sometimes, stuff like that. So I wanted to talk to you. Because, I mean, it sounds like your life right now hasn’t been normal for you for all that long. So I want you to think about it for a bit. A few days, a few weeks. Think about if you like the idea of having me around. If you’re not okay with that, I can respect that. I can wait until you go to college, maybe, to ask her.”

Maggie just blinked at him, dumbfounded. In all that, he remembered that she said she wanted to go to college.

“Think about it,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Maggie looked down at her ice cream. She’d licked all the way down to the cone and begun to eat around its edge, and her stomach was starting to churn a little -- she knew it would, she didn’t bring a lactaid because she didn’t know they’d be getting ice cream, but she’d decided it was worth it, just this once.

“Okay,” she said.

When they were done with their cones, they walked to the trash can near the order window to drop off their garbage. There was nobody there to order anything, and Lauren was propped forward, half leaning out the window with her forearms on the sill. The posture pulled her shirt tight over her breasts and Maggie couldn’t help but notice them, turning away almost immediately for fear of being caught staring.

Lauren was there, for everything with Elisa. She may not have noticed, because she was a few years older and older classes never really notice the younger ones in high school. But she probably did. Maggie felt like everyone would have known.

She began to walk quickly away from the window toward the street, her chin tucked down to her chest, Eduardo dragging behind her by nothing but the force of their bond.

“Stop it,” Eduardo said, but Maggie ignored him. 

“Hey,” AJ called, hurrying to catch up with her. “Hey, slugger, slow down.”

She did. The last thing she wanted to do was piss him off when he’d given her so much responsibility, so much trust in his life.

He was breathing a little heavily. “You gotta cool it,” he said, laughing, “I’m a big guy, I can’t keep up with you and your scrawny legs.”

Maggie shoved her hands deep into her pockets and slowed, but did not stop. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. He fell into step beside her. Suzanne hurried ahead of him, resting a hand over the peak of Eduardo’s shoulders as they walked together.

They walked in silence for a block, waited for the light to change, and crossed in silence.

“So that girl at the DQ,” AJ said carefully, finally. “She--she was pretty, right?”

And Maggie’s eyes shot up at him, and she was embarrassed by how glassy and frightened they must look, but her heart was in her throat and she was thinking, God, how could she have been so careless, to let herself look at Lauren like that, how could she ever have let herself  _ notice _ ?

She took a shuddering breath, and then another, Eduardo skittering back and forth in distress while Suzanne held out her hands and tried to calm him. Maggie felt, to her utter shame, her eyes filling with tears, her breath coming in increasingly sharp pants and gasps, her heart racing.

In some vague, distant part of her mind, she registered that AJ looked distraught, that he was holding out his hands, one of them still holding the baseball gloves, as though they could push back her fear and her grief, one hand occasionally moving toward her shoulder but pulling back at the last second.

“Hey,” he said quietly, and then louder when she couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own racing heart. “Hey. Maggie, it’s okay. It’s okay. Hey.” 

AJ hovered awkwardly, but Suzanne reached out a hand to Eduardo, ran it over the fur of his back to soothe him, and Maggie was soothed by that touch through him, so that her heart slowed, her breathing slowed. Finally, AJ seemed to overcome his nervousness and he put a warm, solid hand on her shoulder. It grounded her, recentered her.

“Hey,” he said again, and puts his other hand on her other shoulder. “Maggie, look at me.”

She breathed deeply, shuddering, once, twice, and then did.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re not the first person to feel this way, and you won’t be the last, okay? I have a couple friends back in ATL and they’re living real happy, you know? And there’s one guy on my crew at work here -- he doesn’t say anything, but he commutes down from Lincoln, and he lives up there with a roommate who probably isn’t really a roommate, you know what I mean? And he’s good, he’s a good guy, a good worker, he’s happy.” 

Maggie heard him, heard his words, struggled to process them while her entire body shivered. He didn’t look like he was making fun of her, or like he was trying to be a jerk.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

She didn’t know how to answer that, so she just shrugged.

“Man, I remember being sixteen,” he said, with a soft laugh. “Been living with those adult hormones for just long enough to feel like you’re controlling them instead of them controlling you. Your daemon hasn’t changed for a few years so you think that you’re done growing. But it doesn’t work like that. You still got so much to learn about yourself that you won’t know until you learn it, you know?”

Maggie sniffed. She had no idea what he was talking about.

Beside her, Eduardo had his hackles up, even as the gorilla rested a gentle hand on his head.

“What I’m saying is,” AJ said again, “everything that’s happened to you up until now, everything you are right now, is just part of who you’re going to become. You’re not done growing. You’ll never be done becoming the person you’re gonna be tomorrow. You like girls, eh? I’m guessing that’s why you don’t live with your parents anymore?” 

Maggie stiffened, but it was all so obvious now. What point was there in lying? She nodded once. 

AJ sighed. “Yeah. That’s some bullshit, kid. But you just gotta… remember that the more you live, the more you do, the less those two things, the girls, your parents, the less they define you. It just means you gotta have a life that’s big enough to make that shit look really small by comparison. And I think that’s what you’re going to do, Maggie. You’ve got dreams, and not a single thing keeping you here in Blue Springs when you’re ready to leave.”

Maggie inhaled a shaky breath and looked down from AJ’s piercing gaze. It felt strange, the way AJ was talking to her. There was no pity, like Mr. Liu had always seemed to feel. There was none of the detached discomfort that Tia Rosa exuded whenever they came at all close to discussing… things. 

The only thing he seemed at all uncomfortable about was whether it was okay to put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and that was probably because she was sixteen and a girl and they weren’t related.

(He didn’t know that nobody, not even Eduardo, touched her to comfort her anymore.)

“I think you should propose to Tia,” Maggie said quietly.

“Maggie, you should take some time to--”

“No, I mean it,” Maggie insisted. “I think I’d like it if you did.”

AJ smiled softly. “Yeah? Really?”

Maggie nodded.

A few feet away, Eduardo leaned against Suzanne’s legs.

As they walked back to the house, Maggie didn’t feel safe, exactly, but it was the closest she’d come since before she’d come up with the idiot idea to slip a card into Eliza Wilke’s locker.

AJ and Tia Rosa got engaged a few weeks later, and AJ moved into the house with them. He made big, greasy breakfasts for all of them on the weekends, and shared his DVD collection with Maggie, and got her listening to Outkast and Ludacris and YoungBloodZ with him.

They went to Atlanta for Christmas that first year, and AJ introduced her to his friends and to his parents, proudly, as his “stepdaughter-to-be.” 

“Stepniece,” she’d correct playfully, and he’d fake-punch her in the shoulder and say, “that’s not a word.”

In Atlanta, he took her for lunch at Denny’s with a two old friends of his: Laetitia, with curves and curly hair and bright green eyes and skin the color of Maggie’s and a cobra wound around her arm, and Jack, slender and muscular and dark-skinned with close-cropped hair and a gazelle beside her. Before Jack started talking, Maggie had thought she was a man, and something about the realization that she wasn’t made her unspeakably attractive. Not that Maggie was  _ attracted _ attracted, necessarily… although she kind of was, if she were being honest with herself. It was more that there was something magnetic about Jack, about the relaxed slope of her shoulders and the ease of her laugh and the way she slung an arm over Laetitia’s shoulders like she didn’t care who could see them.

Maggie fought hard to keep from staring, not because she found Jack to be strange, but because she found, somehow, she didn’t  _ want _ to look anywhere else when Jack was just there, in front of her, like that. Something in Maggie grew, inflated, at the sight of how everything about Jack seemed like a giant  _ fuck you _ to all the rules that told her how she was supposed to look and who she was supposed to be--and how Jack was so clearly so  _ happy _ that way.

Maggie tried to be subtle about it but Eduardo climbed under the table and hopped up onto the bench between Jack and the gazelle, eyeing him in wonder.

Laetitia and Jack and AJ chatted about old friends Maggie had never met and places Maggie had never been, but they found ways to include her anyway, dropping in bits of backstory or talking about how they’d take her to this club or that bar when she turned 21, and Maggie found she didn’t mind that she didn’t have much to contribute.

Nobody said anything about it, but Maggie was sure that Jack and Laetitia knew about… her.

Later, as they were walking out, while Laetitia and AJ took care of the bills, Jack looked over at Maggie -- they were close to the same height, Maggie realized, though somehow Jack seemed so much taller -- and quirked her lips.

“If you think women are great now,” she said, “just wait ‘till you meet the first one who likes you back. It’s a whole ‘nother level, girl, and you’ll know then that being a homosexual is seriously the best of all possible outcomes for a person.”

Maggie laughed drily and shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Nah, trust me,” Jack said, grinning. “I wouldn’t of chose it when I was your age, but now? I have Tish, and we have cats, and I own a bar and she runs a youth centre and it’s just the best, man. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

AJ and Tia Rosa didn’t get married until the summer before Maggie left for college.

She’d been eighteen for three months by then. 

For her gift, she gave them a card and a copy of the certificate that formalized her name change from Rodas to Sawyer.

AJ teared up. “Does this mean I can call you my stepdaughter now?” he asked.

Maggie grinned. “Yeah.”

“C’mere.” He threw an arm around her and tugged her close, kissing the top of her head.

Maggie’s parents weren’t there. They hadn’t even been invited: Maggie saw the guest list. Neither AJ nor Tia Rosa asked or said anything to her about it, but to Maggie, it felt an awful lot like the options had been weighed, and in this small way, she had been chosen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Alex next chapter, I promise!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one, a week after my last post, but man, posting a fic like this, that jumps around in timeline, before it's fully written, is sort of nerve-wracking. I've got a ton more written than I've posted and I'm still not finished, but I keep moving bits around into different orders. At the end of the day, this is just where this chapter break worked best, but the next chapter should be longer.
> 
> NSFW.

Maggie looks down at Eduardo. 

“Is this still new?” he asks, nudging at her thigh. “Us?”

“Yeah.” She looks at him, and then up at Alex again. “Yeah, I guess so. We’ve been -- um. We’ve been working on it.” She swallows, unsure of just how much to say. What does Alex want to know about her, now? How much information is too much information?

Someone in the kitchen has burned something, and the scent of charred toast drifts toward them.

Maggie swallows and decides to err on the side of caution, for now, and change the subject to material that’s a little less intimate. Mindful of their surroundings, she asks if Alex is still with the FBI, and Alex doesn’t fight the redirect. 

“Assistant director now,” she says, with a small smile.

Maggie hums. “Officially, now, are you? About time.”

Alex shrugs. “Dynamics changed after the election. Elect a woman-hating asshole to the highest office and suddenly every douchebag I’ve ever issued a demerit to is posturing at me in the hallways like I owe him something. Like, I always knew they felt that way, but they used to be smart enough to at least pretend not to,” she spits. But then she smiles again, a little shyly. “It was funny. I was working in the lab one day, I guess six months ago now, and J’onn stormed in and dropped a folder on my desk and was like, ‘clear your Friday afternoon and show up in dress, we’re making it official, I’m sick of listening to the way some of these kids around here have been  _ thinking  _ lately.’ And then he marched out before I could even open the seal on the damn thing to see that it was my promotion paperwork.”

Maggie blinks and chuckles. “I bet Pam loved that.”

“Pam  _ did _ love that. You know her, no patience for idiot kids who are all balls and no brains. I think that was the happiest I’ve seen her since--” Alex cuts off, looks away, takes a sip of her cooling tea.

Alex is talking, of course, about  _ them _ , about bringing Maggie to see Pam to arrange her building access and security clearance and to make sure Maggie was on Alex’s visitation list for the med bay. Pam, who’d smiled at Alex and said, “Oh, honey, I wondered when you’d finally bring someone in to meet me.”

Maggie knows what Alex is thinking about, and also knows better than to push.

 

\--

 

Maggie has only once in her life had sex that she would describe, after the fact, as “joyful.”

But that’s what it had been, her first time with Alex. They’d gone for dinner at a Japanese place she liked that Alex had never tried, and then they’d gone window-shopping in the trendy hipster neighborhood where it was located, making fun of all the vintage-inspired modern furniture and the once-modern vintage clothing and guessing how exorbitantly priced they might be. Alex kept grabbing her elbow to draw her attention to things, and finally, after a half-dozen storefronts, had slipped her hand down Maggie’s forearm and into Maggie’s own, the kind of forced-casual move made with averted eyes that happened when you were still informally negotiating these new boundaries.

Maggie couldn’t have been happier that Alex had wanted to hold her hand in public. 

The air was dry and cool and their daemons spent more time with each other than with them, Curie flittering around Eduardo’s head like a chick and him batting up at her playfully with his paws. It was that evening, when they were stopped in front of a particularly colorful window, when he sat up and offered her a claw to perch upon for the first time and she took it, ruffling her feathers into place as she settled there. Maggie felt it like a warm weight on her heart, like a heavy blanket making her feel safe and grounded.

They reached the last shop of the stretch and paused. Alex turned, faced her, grabbed her other hand, and swung their joined grips as though they were kids. 

“I’m having such a good night,” she’d said, grinning. “Do you want to come over?”

Maggie grinned. “Yeah, Danvers. Can we get my bike, though?”

Alex had walked to the restaurant, but Maggie (and her cop salary and her student debt and her insistence that her baby--her Triumph--live in off-street covered parking) lived out in the valley where she could have cheap rent in a neighborhood where she wasn’t likely to run into her CIs at the grocery store.

“Of course,” Alex said, and as they walked hand-in-hand back toward the restaurant, Curie perched on Eduardo’s back, preening, while Eduardo glanced up at her over his shoulder.

Maggie handed Alex the spare helmet from her saddlebag and then threw a leg over her bike as she pulled her own over her head. Eduardo hopped up in front of her, nestling between her body and the gas tank.

“D’you think it’ll be tonight?” he asked her.

“I don’t know, maybe?” Her nervous fingers fumbled to attach her chinstrap as Alex swung a leg over behind her and settled, moulding her body to Maggie’s back.

“Maybe probably,” Alex said cheekily, her voice feeling dangerously close even through both of their helmets, and all the air rushed out of Maggie’s lungs. 

It was unusual for a person to pay attention to another person’s communication with their own daemon, but Maggie found that in this case she didn’t mind.

Her helmet finally properly on, Maggie leaned forward with trembling hands, fitting the key in the ignition and then revving the engine a little. Alex settled closer still, her arms encircling the band of Maggie’s torso below her breasts and above Eduardo, respecting the taboo that kept her from touching him.

When they made it into Alex’s apartment, Alex seemed a little less confident, hanging both of their jackets carefully and busying herself with turning on the fire and eyeing her bar cabinet to choose the right scotch. The wolverine and the peregrine falcon eyed each other from the ground. 

“Alex,” Maggie said quietly, moving toward her and stilling her nervous, drumming hands. 

Alex let her hands be stilled and then turned, her body between Maggie’s and the countertop.

And Maggie leaned up and kissed her, slow and gentle, her hands on Alex’s hips because the last thing she wanted to do was push too hard against  _ maybe probably _ . But Alex sighed, as if in relief, and drew her closer, her hands at Maggie’s jaw.

“Maybe probably,” she’d breathed again, pulling away just long enough, and it had sounded so warm and so genuine and yet Maggie couldn’t help but burst into giggles, because really?  _ That _ , of all things, was what she was going to say? And Maggie was mortified with herself but she couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop herself, and Alex pulled away with wide eyes and an open (pink, kiss-swollen) mouth.

“What?!” Alex said, indignantly, but she was smiling too, and as Maggie shook her head affectionately and contained her giggles into a grin, Alex softened under her hands and began to laugh too. And kissing and laughing are two things that shouldn’t be possible to do at the same time but Maggie discovered in that moment that they were, in fact, the  _ best _ possible things to do at the same time. Alex gently, firmly, squarely urged her back and around the corner toward her bed -- until Maggie’s heel caught on the step (who the hell had their bed on an  _ elevated platform  _ in a one-room open-plan apartment?) and she fell backward, catching herself on an elbow on the edge of the mattress. Alex tripped over her too, half-catching her with an arm around the waist, and then they laughed again, giggling as Alex tugged Maggie up by her belt loops, but Maggie’s laughter choked into a gasp as Alex’s hands slid smoothly upward, under her shirt, as they scooted up onto the bed.

Maggie felt all the thrill and joy of a teenager fumbling with a first love in the back seat of a car.

They made out on the bed, both topless, Alex’s hands moving over Maggie’s torso with more confidence than they had before, until Maggie’s world was spinning, her existence reduced to the places their bodies touched. Near their feet, Eduardo and Curie had found ways to wind around one another, moving in syncopation.

Alex’s mouth dragged from Maggie’s lips, up her jaw, to her ear, where it tugged on a lobe and said, “Probably definitely.” 

Maggie laughed at that, breathy under Alex’s lips, and said, “Definitely, eh?”

“Definitely,” Alex nodded, grinning, and Maggie grinned back.

Clothing and time slipped away but not without catches, hemlines hooking on socks and belts being stubborn about loops, and they laughed about each hitch and glitch until laughter became too coherent of a sound for either of them to make. Near their feet, the falcon and the wolverine tangled themselves up in one another, playful batting of paws and sweeping of wings, until pleasure drove Eduardo’s claws into the duvet, drove Curie’s wings out and her head back. When Alex and Maggie collapsed into one another, damp and sated and happy, the wolverine tucked himself into a ring and the falcon nestled into him, tucked under his chin.

“This is good,” Eduardo muttered drowsily. “I like this one.”

Maggie, who hadn’t slept soundly in another person’s home since that first night at her aunt’s, collapsed into Alex’s side and didn’t budge until Alex’s hand, trailing up and down her spine, woke her in the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The unofficial subtitle of this fic is "In Defense of Men of Color." Because the only MOC this show has come close to handling well is J'onn, and he's canonically not a Black man but a Martian pretending to be one.
> 
> The unofficial sub-subtitle is "and butches, too," which is not so much a comment on SG in particular as it is on f/f fandom broadly which almost never writes butches and tends to write them as ugly/predatory when they do appear. Like, I <3 Chyler and think she's handled the pressure of the extreme devotion of f/f fandom with remarkable grace and empathy, but I'll never forget that one interview where she talked about how part of the appeal of Floriana for the role of Maggie was that she didn't try to make the character super butch. (Aside: I'm not interested in Discourse about Flo's casting in the fic comments, though, thx.)
> 
> So, anyway. This fic is a fix-it for Maggie's abandonment issues, and a fix-it for Sanvers, but also a shout-out to all the amazing Black and Latino men I've loved to call friends and coworkers and family, and to all my kind and gorgeous butches/andros/aggros/studs/bois/enbys/genderfuckers and fellow self-identified queers who literally never get to see ourselves on TV. (Except for that new Sara Ramirez character on Madam Secretary. Be still my heart. I want her entire wardrobe.)

“So, um,” Alex says, leaning forward a little, wrapping her hands tighter around her mug. “Anyway. Gotham, eh?”

Maggie nods and purses her lips. “Yeah. Gotham. James told you?”

Alex nods. “He says hi, by the way. I told him I’d be seeing you.”

Maggie had kept in touch with James for awhile after she’d moved, but that friendship, too, had fizzled eventually.

Curie leans toward Alex’s ear, shuffling from her perch on her shoulder, and Maggie knows they’re talking. She looks down at Eduardo, who says, “Don’t look at me. I don’t know.”

“I didn’t --” Alex cuts herself off, inhales, and tries again. “I never wanted you to leave town,” she says. “I never--I just, I guess I always hoped that maybe we could be friends again, after awhile.”

And Maggie can’t help but laugh bitterly at that. “You know, almost every girl who’s ever dumped me has said something like that. Is there some ‘how to let a girl down easy’ seminar that I never got invited to, or something? Because if I were you, I’d ask for my money back. It’s a shit line.”

“Maggie, I didn’t dump--”

Eduardo lifts his head and squints across the table indignantly. Of all the things Maggie had assumed Alex would have processed over the years, it was that. “Yes, you did, Danvers,” she interrupts, with a firmness that would make her therapist proud, and Alex looks stunned into silence. Maggie can only shake her head. She’s not frustrated by this anymore, though it had taken years of work to get to this point. “I didn’t want to break up, Alex. You were everything I’d ever wanted. But you wanted something we didn’t think I could give you, and so you had to move on without me. I don’t begrudge you that, but please, don’t act like it was a mutual thing, okay? You wanted it. I had to live with it.”

Alex nods insistently, almost  _ too  _ insistently, eyes glowing. “I--yes, okay. I understand. I--I’m sorry.”

 

\--

 

When Maggie thinks back to the breakup, the moment that stands out to her as exemplifying, maybe, everything that went wrong between Alex and her, is this:

“Yeah, I have a friend who’s letting me crash.”

And Alex hadn’t asked “Which friend?” Hadn’t asked, “Do you need a ride?” Hadn’t said, “Okay, but do you have a plan for where to go from there?”

You’d have thought Alex would have noticed that Maggie’s closest friends were Alex’s friends. That they had been for months.

Maggie hadn’t had that many friends before Alex. Her previous ex had gotten most of their mutual friends in the breakup. M’gann was on Mars. She knew a few people, mostly bar friends, mostly aliens. Most of those aliens lived in conditions that weren’t all that hospitable to humans: they were climbing species who had furniture bolted to the walls and ceilings, or floors covered with a foot of black-market extraterrestrial soil that grew ferns that emitted some molecule the aliens needed to breathe for several hours every day to survive on Earth.

But Maggie loved Alex for who she was, not who she wasn’t. And who she was was, often, more than a little caught up in herself and her own world and not all that attentive of others’ needs unless the ‘other’ in question was Kara or unless those needs were spelled out very, very clearly.

So Alex didn’t ask which friend. And so Maggie didn’t have to tell her that the “friend” was a Days Inn a few blocks from the precinct, with a pizza and a bottle of cheap Dewar’s because she wanted to forget tonight and then suffer enough for it tomorrow that the pain of the hangover might drown out the pain of her grief.

She’d sold all of her furniture, her TV, most of her kitchenware, before she moved in with Alex, because Alex’s stuff was generally equivalent to or better than hers, and they knew they’d be dumping a lot of  _ that  _ stuff when they got replacements as wedding gifts. She had clothes, some books, a favorite cast-iron skillet she’d been seasoning since she bought it as a graduation gift for herself when she finished the Academy. She’d left with an overnight bag and would need to go back to pick up her other suitcase and her bonsais from ho-- Alex’s place, but they’d agreed she could do that with a precinct car during the day sometime when Alex was at work. 

When nothing else this good in her life had ever lasted, she wondered how in the hell she’d convinced herself to behave as though this, Alex, would.

And so she found herself at a shitty motel drinking pisswater scotch straight from the bottle, looking up furnished apartments on her phone, self-soothing by running her fingers over Eduardo’s head while he ignored her, and wondering how in hell she’d landed herself here, ten years out of college and somehow starting from scratch in every respect except for her job.

It felt altogether too much like that first night on her Tia’s sofabed, all those years ago.

She was just about to start her second slice of pizza, making her way down out of the neck of the scotch bottle, when her phone dinged with a text.

James.

_ Heard what happened. I hope you’re okay. Where are you staying? _

She tossed the phone to the side without answering and took another swig of scotch, slumping back against the headboard.

The phone pinged again, twice.

_ I heard from Kara that you’re staying with a friend. We’re both worried that ‘friend’ is code for ‘cheap hotel,’ and none of us are ok with that. _

_ Winn just asked me to say that he’s worried too. _

Maggie sighed and opened the reply screen, but before she could start typing something like  _ Yes, a friend, I’m good _ , the phone dinged a third time.

_ Winn is about to hack the guest lists for every hotel and motel within 25 miles of NC, so if you’re staying at one of them, it’d be cool if you’d spare him the labor and the criminal activity and just let me know now. _

And Maggie sighed. She took a gulp of Dewar’s, and then another, and a third.

She picked up her phone.

_ Days Inn on Belmont. I’m fine, pls don’t tell Alex _

The reply was instant:

_ Go down to the lobby and check out, I’ll be there in ten to pick you up. You can stay with me as long as you want. _

Maggie sighed.

_ No really, I’m fine,  _ she typed back. She added a thumbs-up emoji for emphasis.

_ I’m already on my way.  _

Maggie dropped the phone beside her and took another swig of her scotch.

She didn’t go downstairs and check out, but in fifteen minutes, there was a knock on her door anyway.

“Maggie,” James called.

Maggie felt herself tearing up again.  _ Dammit _ .

“Maggie,” he called again. “Listen, I won’t actually push you come to my place if you don’t want to, but can you please just let me in to talk for a sec?”

“Just let him in,” Eduardo groaned, and rolled over.

Maggie took another swig of her scotch and looked at the bottle. She was about a quarter of the way through, the waterline below the top of the label, and when she stood up, the room spun a little. Eduardo lay sprawled out, half on his back and half on his side, near the pillows, and the room was small enough that he didn’t need to follow as she walked unsteadily toward the door.

She unhooked the chain and turned the deadbolt and let James in.

He leaned there, an elbow propped up against the jamb. His daemon, a lioness -- because of course James Olsen, the fucking Guardian, would actually  _ have _ one of those glamour daemons that everyone dreamed of having as a kid -- sat beside him, her tail swishing quietly against the cheap carpet. 

James eyed her up and down. “Well, I guess getting to you when you’re halfway gone to shit is better than finding you when you’ve gotten all the way there, swerved your way through town and then flipped your car in a cul-de-sac.” 

Maggie huffed and walked back to the bed where she perched on the edge next to Eduardo, who didn’t move. “The love of my life just dumped me for someone who doesn’t even exist yet, the fuck would you have me do instead?”

James followed her in a few steps and then leaned on the wall next to the kitschy mirrored closet doors. “Nothing,” he said. “I’d do exactly what you’re doing. I’d just rather you didn’t do it alone.”

“I’m good alone, James,” Maggie muttered. “Seems like that’s how I’m meant to roll.”

“Fair warning that you’re going to need to share that bottle with me before you start singing Whitesnake.”

The booze was starting to sink in and the room wobbled. “Whitesnake is some white people bullshit.”

“Yes it is,” James agreed. He looked up and to the side for a minute, and then inhaled a little, maybe self-conscious, and began, “ _ I know you’d like to think your shit don’t stink, but lean a little bit closer, see that roses really smell like poo-poo-oo, yeah roses really smell like poo-poo-oo _ …”

Maggie blinked at him. She wasn’t quite ready to smile, but. “Wish I’d known you back when Outkast came through National City two years ago. My ex didn’t want to go with me.”

“We’ll catch them next time they come.” He took two steps toward her and took the bottle from her to take a swig for himself. He squinted down at it, wincing, as he swallowed. “This is disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, l I’m disgusting right now.” Why was she talking like this to him? They weren’t close. But the lioness leapt onto the bed behind her to lay next to Eduardo, and James stepped forward to perch on the edge of the other bed, facing her.

“You should have seen me after Kara dumped me,” he said. “I’d just broken up a long-term, serious relationship with a great girl to be with her, only to have her decide that apparently wanting me was better than having me.” He chuckled. “I listened to  _ Roses _ on loop at the gym when I got to the point that I wasn’t wanting the darker, sadder stuff anymore.”

Maggie looked up at him. She’d heard bits of that story from Alex, but not much, and Maggie had never understood how in the hell someone could look at  _ James _ , who was sweet and smart and a CEO and a Pulitzer-winning photographer and a  _ lion _ and so gorgeous that even Maggie’s gay ass couldn’t help but notice it, and decide instead that she’d prefer the company of the humanoid equivalent of mayonnaise. Scratch that:  _ expired _ mayonnaise.

She said as much. Drunkenly. “I never understood how in the hell someone could look at  _ you _ , who are sweet and smart and a CEO and a Pulitzer-winning photographer and a  _ lion _ and so gorgeous that even my gay ass can’t help but notice it, and decide instead that she’d prefer the company of the humanoid equivalent of expired mayonnaise.”

Apparently her misery was making her an affectionate drunk toward the one person showing her affection.

She supposed that made sense.

James blinked at her, then blinked again, and then burst out laughing, loud and deep, until he was rubbing tears from his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Maggie,” he sighed as he regained his breath, “Oh, Maggie, you can’t say something like that to me and then refuse to come stay in my perfectly good, empty guest room.”

Maggie didn’t respond.

“I’ll leave you alone,” James said. “You can hide in there with the door closed and drink away your misery by yourself until you’re ready to be with other people, but at least you won’t have to pay rent by the night. Or we can drink together in my living room tonight and I’ll feel better knowing there’s someone keeping an eye on you and your raging hangover tomorrow and ideally not curing it with hair of the dog.”

“You sayin’ this is about you, Olsen?” Maggie asked, chuckling. She was slurring a little.

James shrugged. “If that’s what’ll make you come to my place, then yeah, sure. It’s about me.”

“You hafta drink with me if I come over. I make bad decisions when I drink alone.” She eyed the scotch bottle and then took another swig, as if to prove her point. “I hadda headstart before this, though. We drank tequila when we were packing m’stuff. You can’t catch up to me.” 

“I bet you’re right.” James leaned forward and slipped an arm around her waist, tugging her to her feet with him, and then bent carefully to pick up her duffel bag. The lioness nudged a sluggish Eduardo off the bed. 

As James supported her through the lobby, Maggie vaguely registered the man at reception sputtering at them. “Sir. Sir! Where are you taking her like that, sir?”

It was, Maggie supposed, a responsible question for the receptionist to ask, but even in her foggy state she knew he never would have asked it if James had been white.

James paused, deliberating, and then said, “She’s my friend, and she’s going through a rough time, so she’s going to come stay at my place.”

“Sir, she’s clearly inebriated. I think I need -- sir, I think I need to ask you not to take her anywhere until she’s sober.”

Maggie felt James take a deep breath. 

“I’m fine,” Maggie said.

“Sir,” the receptionist said. 

“Her fiancée broke off their engagement, man, she just shouldn’t be alone.”

“Sir, please, don’t make me call the police.”   


That jolted Maggie out of her haze. “I’m fine,” she said, standing straighter and stepping away from James. She fumbled in her inside jacket pocket and pulled out her badge. “I  _ am _ the police. I got dumped, then I got drunk, and I’m probably gonna get drunker, and James’s gonna make sure I don’t drown in my own puke later. Checking out of room 214. Just charge it to the card on file.”

“Ma’am, are you sure--”

“Yes,” she looked at his nametag, “Trevor, I’m sure.”

She turned on her heel and moved to stride out the door, but the room kept turning after she’d stopped and James caught her just before she fell. He settled her in the passenger seat of his sports car and then drove them carefully to his place, a condo in a nice complex not too far from CatCo where she’d been once before, and inside, he steered her to his couch. She put the scotch on the coffee table in front of her, and he set a glass of water beside that, but before she could drink either one, she’d fallen asleep against the leather, Eduardo sprawled on the floor below.

She woke up the next morning to find a blanket draped over her, her boots removed and set on the floor, and the sight of the sky greying into daylight. Eduardo was curled up at the opposite end of the couch, blinking back at her, not touching her.

She sat up and and promptly made use of the trash can James had thoughtfully left by her head.

When James woke up, and hour or so later, he directed her to the guest room down the hall. He’d put her duffel bag there, and she stripped out of her jeans and jacket and into some sweats and then collapsed into the bed to sleep some more.

Maggie had been staying with James for two weeks when she decided to go to the bar after work. To go somewhere other than the precinct, James’ guest room, and the grocery store and takeout joints where she got food. It would be good for her, she thought, to get out.

Then she walked in the door and saw Alex and J’onn and Kara and Winn laughing together over one of the back tables. Kara, unlike most alien species, did have a daemon, though it was -- quite inconveniently -- a Kryptonian animal that looked like a cross between a koala and a chipmunk with pointy ears, its fur mostly white but for the green tinting at the tips of its ears and tail and its feet. It clung, typically, to Kara’s upper arm, and had a kryptonian name that Maggie couldn’t begin to pronounce but sounded vaguely like Hansel, which is what most humans called him. The fact that humans and kryptonians both had daemons had been one of the reasons that Kara’s family had sent her to Earth. Kara usually dodged the question of “what kind of animal is  _ that _ ?” by saying that it was an obscure, mostly-extinct mammal from the Amazon somewhere, and that she’d had to look it up when he’d shifted into that shape.

Eduardo bristled at the sight of him just as Hansel turned and saw him. “Let’s go.”

It made sense that Alex and her friends would keep going to the bar. J’onn and Kara were aliens, after all. And Kara might only drink club soda, most of the time, but these were her people more than Maggie’s. And J’onn -- well, J’onn drank all kinds of alien booze when the mood struck him.

No, this bar would have to be Alex’s, now.

Yet another thing Maggie would have to give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so behind on responding to comments. I will get to them all, I promise! Work is insane right now, hence the slower-than-ideal posting rate, too.


	6. Chapter 6

The night after Maggie realized she’d lost Dollywood to Alex, she finally, for the first time in all the mess of the breakup, Skyped her Tía and AJ.

Her Tía, ever inscrutable, had said, “I’m so sorry, Maggie. I guess it’s good we never got to meet her.” And then, as an afterthought, as though she’d reminded herself to say it: “It’s her loss.”

But AJ shook his head and then ran a palm over his scalp. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry. Why don’t you come out and visit us for a few days? I bet Jack’d lend you her bike and we could ride out to the coast together, maybe? Take a little road trip?”

Her Tía and AJ had moved to Atlanta two years before to be closer to AJ’s aging parents, and Maggie hadn’t gone to visit them there yet.

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “Okay.”

So she and Eduardo flew out to Atlanta and Jack loaned Maggie her Harley (“And come to the bar and have a drink on me --  _ after _ you return the bike”) and AJ rode his own. Before they left, he handed her an ancient click-wheel iPod.

“Loaded that up with new music for you,” AJ said, “just like the old days. Keep it if you want, I got a new one.”

Jack’s helmet was high-end and wired for sound. The Maggie of two weeks earlier, the one who was engaged and in love and happier than she’d ever been, would never have listened to music while she rode, but this Maggie, lonely and heartbroken and two steps too close to not giving a shit, plugged in AJ’s old iPod and put it on shuffle and for two days barely ever listened to the same song twice and almost none of it was anything she knew. She recognized a few new tracks from familiar voices, Rich the Kid and Boondox and Solange, but most of it was completely new, stuff she’d learned that AJ heard about from Jack, from her bar DJs and sometimes from the performers at open mic nights. Maggie played it louder than she should have on the road, every song happy or angry or sexy but none of them sad because AJ was too smart to do anything that might cause Maggie to break down in tears at 60 miles an hour on a motorcycle. 

And so for two days they rode, and Maggie barely talked to anyone, not even to Eduardo, who lay between her body and the gas tank, wearing protective gear, and watched the road ahead. She followed AJ as they took the freeway out to Savannah, where they stopped for lunch, and then took side roads along the coast and through the countryside all the way down to Jacksonville. They stayed the night there, opting to share a room in the interest of staying in a less-shitty hotel, and Maggie lay awake late into the night, breathing the scent of hotel-room cleaner and listening to the strangely comforting sound of AJ snoring from the other bed while Eduardo lay just out of arm’s reach somewhere near her knee.

The next day, they took back roads all the way to the Atlanta suburb where AJ and Tía lived.

That night, she went to Jack’s place, and sat and had a beer at the bar before it got busy. She flirted for awhile with a gorgeous stud whose daemon was a fox and who reminded her of younger Jack, almost fifteen years ago now, in the diner.

“I don’t want to lead you on.” Maggie said after a few minutes, thumbing the soft skin where her engagement ring had sat for so many months. “I just got dumped. And I live in California. So I’m not… you know. But you’re… great. And I do think you’re hot.”

“Understood,” the girl, Jaylin, said. She grinned. “Tell you what, I’ll buy your next drink, and we’ll just sit here and chat and flirt some more, and we’ll both know nothing’s gonna happen or come from it but you can go back to Cali knowing that at least one girl thinks you’re on fire and your ex is an idiot.” 

Maggie smiled and nodded. They talked; Jaylin listened, and asked thoughtful questions, and treated her like she was interesting.  Maggie listened to Jaylin, too; she was an MFA student at the SCAD Atlanta campus, she was active with the local Black Lives Matter chapter, and she did contract graphic design work to pay her way through school. She was interesting, and engaging, and Maggie enjoyed talking to her. 

It was nice.

(They did, in the end, make out for awhile in a back corner of the bar. Maggie felt bisected: her body liked it, her ego enjoyed the attention. But kissing someone like this, a virtual stranger, when she’d spent so many months kissing someone whose arms made her feel safe and loved and protected and  _ home _ , left her feeling empty.)

Jaylin walked her to her cab. As promised, they didn’t exchange any contact information, and that was okay.

In the morning, Maggie slept in. By the time she woke up, AJ had gone to work, but she found Tía Rosa sitting in the kitchen, sipping coffee and reading a newspaper, Cimarron lying on a soft pad she kept for him near the table.

“You’re up,” Tía said, folding the paper and setting it aside. “There’s coffee and a mug for you over there.”

Cimarron shifted over, making space for Eduardo to lie with him on his mat. Eduardo walked over nervously and took it.

Maggie half-smiled at her Tía and nodded. She went to the coffeemaker. “I, um -- don’t you have work today?”

Tía shrugged. “Called in. I haven’t gotten to see you, really, since you got here. So I thought maybe we could -- I don’t know.” She tapped manicured fingernails against her mug and inhaled sharply. “AJ made omelettes this morning before he left. He made one for you with vegetables and no cheese. It’s in the frying pan if you want to heat it back up.”

Maggie nodded tightly and turned the burner on. “Thanks.” 

She wrapped her hands around her mug and breathed in the coffee scent.

They shared space together, quietly, until the omelette was warm, and Maggie transferred it to a plate and sat down at the table.

“How are you doing?” Tía asked. 

Maggie chewed, swallowed. The omelette was good, of course. A little rubbery from the reheating, but the vegetables weren’t overcooked and she could taste that AJ had seasoned them with salt and lime and a little cayenne.

“Okay,” she said. “A little better. I’m glad I came.”

“I’m glad you did too,” Tía said with an earnestness that caught Maggie a little off-guard. She looked up from her plate but her Tía was looking deep into her own coffee mug. Cimarron sat up and put his paws and his chin into her lap, and Eduardo blinked at him, puzzled.

“You know,” Tía said slowly, “when I think back to my wedding, there’s this one image that stands out in my mind. You know what it is?”

“Saying your vows?” Maggie hazarded, brow furrowed, because the last thing she wanted to do right then was to talk about weddings.

Tía laughed. “No, no. I don’t think anybody remembers their actual wedding ceremony. It all just… passes over you like fog. No, it’s from the reception. You and AJ were dancing to some Jackson 5 song, and you were goofing around, with him trying to get you to stand on his feet to dance like kids do with their parents, remember?”

Maggie remembered. She’d been wearing heels, and she’d been worried about hurting his back because that was the kind of game you played with kids a third her size and age, but laughing, they’d tried it, and she’d irreparably scuffed up the patent leather toes of his tuxedo shoes, and they’d only managed to balance for three or four steps before she had to step down again.

“Yeah,” she said. “I remember that.”

Tía hummed.

“It was, maybe, the happiest I’d ever seen you look,” she said. “I remember thinking that the one thing I was sure I’d done right by you was to bring AJ into your life. He was so nervous about you, when we first started dating, I think because he knew that raising you, and being responsible for you, scared the shit out of me, and he didn’t want to do anything to get in the middle. But when he got over it -- when I encouraged him to get over it -- everything changed. You two were like overnight soulmates.”

Maggie had stopped eating, her omelette getting cold on her plate, while she listened. She’d never heard her Tía talk like this, open and earnest.

“I never wanted to have a kid,” she said, “but you know, he always did. He said he’d always wanted to be a dad, but things hadn’t quite worked out. By the time he got clean, and got his life back in order with money and work, he was still single and old enough to think that having a baby probably wasn’t in the cards unless he got together with someone five or ten years younger than him. And, I mean, you know AJ. He was never going to set that as a standard for who he’d date.”

Maggie knew that AJ had struggled with a cocaine addiction for awhile in the ‘90s in Atlanta. Laetitia had been the one to help him get into recovery when he'd realized that something needed to change; that had been when Laetitia and Jack had gone from being casual acquaintances to some of his closest friends. He’d been clean a few years when he moved to Nebraska, though, so it hadn’t been something Maggie thought about much, though she knew it was there, in his past.

“So when you came to live with me," Tia continued, "and then he and I got together, it felt like -- I don’t know. Like I’d been an avenue to bring together these two people who wanted and needed each other.” She smiled. “I’m not saying that’s the  _ only _ reason I was with him. We wouldn’t have lasted this long if I didn’t love him dearly for himself. But it was an amazing bonus.”

“He might have saved my life,” Maggie admitted quietly. “But you did, too.”

Tía shrugged. “I did what any person with a heart would have done. You’re my blood.”

Maggie remembered that conversation between Tía and her friend Jen, that first night on the phone.

“You’re my blood and I love you,” Tía said, and Maggie blinked.

Those weren’t words that they used together, Tía and her.

Tía swallowed and rubbed her eyes. “I remember that moment at the reception,” she said, “and I remember how proud I was of you, the first Rodas to go to university. Even if,” she smiled wryly, “you weren’t a Rodas anymore. And I wished I’d known how to be better for you--”

“Tía--”

“No, Maggie, it’s okay. I never knew how to make you feel at home with me, or how to make myself feel at home with you. I wasn’t wired to be a mother. Or motherly. But I hope you know that I cared about you, so much.  _ So _ much. And I still do. And for all that Oscar...”

She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I just… I’m glad you came into my life, Maggie, despite the circumstances. And I’m so proud of you, to be your family. And I’m sorry we never met Alex, and we couldn’t come to your shower--”

“It’s  _ okay _ , Tía,” Maggie insisted. Because Maggie knew that they could afford to travel to National City for the shower or the wedding but not both, not when they were still recovering from the financial burden of the move to Atlanta. “It’s probably better,” she sighed. “We were-- we were good together.” Her throat tightened. “And she wants more than me and I want--I want--” 

She looked up at her aunt, who was looking at her steadily, with kind eyes.

“I want to be enough,” she gasped, “I want to be enough for someone.”

“ _ Cariña _ ,” her Tía murmured, and for the first time in their lives, reached out to hug Maggie. And Maggie, perhaps because she was feeling tired or because she was feeling vulnerable, surprised herself by accepted the hug. They leaned awkwardly toward one another over their knees, an A-frame, Maggie’s hands resting in her aunt’s lap and her aunt wrapping her arms around Maggie’s shoulders. 

Maggie didn’t cry, then. She didn’t imagine she and Tía Rosa would ever have the kind of relationship where Maggie cried on her shoulder. 

But, “You are,” Tía murmured. “And you will be.”

The whole trip was relief.

But then she and Eduardo returned to National City, to James’s guest room and apartment-hunting and loneliness, and everything crashed down on her again like cinderblocks.

When, three days later, she learned of an opening with the Gotham PD Science Division, it seemed like divine intervention.

She’d never been to Gotham, and the idea of a completely fresh start thrilled her endlessly.

She applied. She got the job. And she and Eduardo had left National City by the end of the month. 

  
  


\--

 

“So, um, how  _ is _ Gotham?” Alex tries again.

Maggie laughs a little and shrugs. “A total disaster and an exhausting place to work.”

“I bet,” Alex says. “Is it as corrupt as everyone says?”

“Worse. Same thing happens over and over: I meet a cop I like, I think maybe he’s one of the good ones, someone whose back I could have and who could have mine if I needed it. Then I’d find out the hard way that he’s in someone’s pocket, just like all the rest of them.” Maggie pushes her hair back and smirks a little. “Honestly, if it weren’t for the vigilantes, that entire city would burn.”

Alex gasps exaggeratedly, splaying her fingers across her chest. “Maggie Sawyer, are you _supporting_ _vigilantes_? Just you wait until I tell Supergirl!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Maggie laughs, “They’re a mixed bag. I met Batman once, and it took all of fifteen seconds for him to establish himself as six feet of toxic masculinity in a cape. I don’t trust his motives for shit, but he does curb crime more effectively than the PD. And I actually… got to know Batwoman pretty well, though, and she’s the real deal. You’d like her.”

“Would I?”

“You’ve got similar styles.”

“I don’t like what masks do to my field of vision.”

“I’m talking about out of the mask, Alex.”

Alex’s eyebrows shoot up at that, and Curie lifts her head. “You know who she is, then.”

Maggie offers what she hopes is a rogueish grin. “Biblically.”

Alex leans forward, jaw dropping. “ _ No _ .”

And Maggie can’t help but feel a little bit of vindictive glee at Alex’s obvious jealousy, though she can’t tell whether it’s jealousy of Maggie for her relationship with the Batwoman, or jealousy of the Batwoman for her relationship with Maggie. 

Maggie realizes she’s really okay with either one.

“Are you--is she--are you both--” Alex sputters, wincing a little at herself. “Are you a  _ thing _ ?”

“We were,” Maggie says, and sips at the dregs of her coffee. “Not anymore.”

“Oh,” Alex says, inscrutable. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

And Maggie finds, to her surprise, that she can shrug that off more easily than she’d ever thought she could shrug off a comment about a breakup. “It’s all right. We were good, she and I, and then we just… we just realized after six or seven months that what we had was as far as it was going to go. The relationship didn’t have legs for the long term.” She pauses, thinking, and smiles. “Or a cape, or a utility belt, or a bulletproof uniform. You know. Whatever vigilantes need to keep going.”

Alex hums, a little dismissively, into her mug.

“So how about you?” Maggie asks. “Girlfriend? Wife?” She pauses. “Kid? Kids?”

Alex shrugs and laughs a little breathily, her hair falling into her face. She pushes it back. “None of the above.” She turns to watch the scurry of activity behind the bar, avoiding Maggie’s gaze. “I never really, um. I never wanted to do it by myself. Kids, I mean. With the job, and stuff. And I’ve dated a little, but nothing ever lasted more than a few months.” She inhales deeply and, with visible resolve, looks at Maggie again. “I think if I’m going to get pregnant, I don’t want to be older than 35. And, I mean, I just turned 33 two weeks ago--”

“Yeah, happy belated,” Maggie says.

“--thanks. But anyway, yeah. I don’t know. Two years isn’t a lot of time to meet someone, commit to her forever, and dig into the whole insemination process. And, I mean, I’ve been exposed to so much weird shit at the DEO, I don’t even know if my fertility would be impacted. So, I don’t know. Sometimes I think about waiting longer and adopting. Maybe an older kid.”

Maggie swallows hard. “That’s a tall order. Older kids without parents have a hard time finding good permanent homes. And they come with all kinds of issues.”

Maggie doesn’t need to be more explicit. She can tell by the look in Alex’s eyes that Alex understands.  _ Like you _ , Alex’s eyes say, kindly. Abandonment issues. Trust issues. Issues where you understand yourself so little, and distrust yourself so deeply, that you can’t even figure out how to relate to your own daemon.

“My family adopted Kara when she and I were both teenagers. We were complete strangers and she’d lost her entire world,” is what Alex says, though. “And Kara still, as an adult, is working through the impacts of what it means to have lost her family so young. I think I’ve learned a lot from that. Sometimes I think -- sometimes I think that might even make me a really good person to adopt an older kid, you know. Because I’ve been exposed to what they go through. And,” she ducks her chin a little, “any kid of mine has Kara for an aunt. And Kara gets it better than--than just about anyone.”

_ Just about _ anyone.

Just about.

Suddenly Alex sits up and throws her shoulders back, as though casting off a heavy coat. Maggie hadn’t noticed just how low she’d slumped into her chair. “Anyway” she says brightly, clearly intent on changing the subject, “speaking of Kara, how long are you in town? I think she’d love to see you, and the guys would too, if you have time.”

Maggie flinches in confusion and blinks. 

Eduardo looks up at her. “Didn’t you tell her this? I thought we made it pretty clear in that message you sent?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Maggie says, winding her fingers into the fur at the back of his neck. She’ll need to go back into Facebook later, to see what she wrote to Alex, because she could swear she’d made this much clear. But then, Sofia had been demanding her attention to talk about packing, and Sofia’s daemon had been fluttering up around the light fixture and making the room feel like a strobe-lit nightclub, and the doorbell had rung with their dinner delivery order, so Maggie had dashed off the message more quickly than she might have liked.

“Alex, I -- sorry, I thought I’d made this clear,” she says. “But -- well. I made sergeant back in Gotham, and then when Cooper -- you remember him, the old Science Division Captain here?”

“Of course,” Alex nods, “we worked with him, when he felt like playing nice. He just retired, right?”

“Right,” Maggie says. “So he retired, and the division reshuffled, and they recruited me to come back and fill in a gap for a sergeant. And I just… I don’t know. It had been long enough.” She thinks of Sofia and smiles to herself. “I’m in -- I’m in a really good place right now, and there were a lot of reasons why this move made sense. So, yeah. I live here again, back at the SciDiv. And I’m going to be pushing for a freer exchange of information with the DEO, in both directions, which means we’re going to be working together. That’s why I wanted to meet up with you and catch up a little. I wanted to make sure we’d be okay, you know, when we see each other in the field.” She smirks. “I’d like to avoid future bickering over jurisdiction.”

But Alex is just blinking at her. Maggie can’t read her at all.

“You’ve moved back to National City,” Alex echoes, a little dumbly. 

“Yeah, Danvers,” Maggie says gently. She forces a nervous smile and tilts her head, trying to see past the veneer that’s crept over Alex’s face in the past thirty seconds or so. Her knee wants to jump nervously but Eduardo weighs it down, anchoring her. “Yeah, I’ve moved back. I hope that’s okay.” 

“You hope that’s okay,” Alex echoes, again.

Maggie can only nod, a little helpless.

Alex swallows, her mouth half open, like it’s dry. “Yeah. Of -- of course. That’s great. Yeah.” She lifts her teacup to her mouth and then frowns at it; Maggie supposes it must be empty.

“Want a refill?” Maggie asks. “I’ll get it for you.” 

Alex shakes her head. “No, I’m, I’m good, I think.” She takes a deep breath, as though steeling herself, and asks, “Are you, um. Did you move alone, or did you -- do you have someone --  _ with _ you?”  

Maggie swallows awkwardly now. 

“You know what she’s asking,” Eduardo mutters, and yes, of course Maggie does. She’s not an idiot. And there are a variety of ways that she could answer that question honestly, all of them divulging different bits of information about her life. And Maggie’s had a long time to get over Alex Danvers, and god only knows the number of hours she’s put into it, to being in this place where she could imagine having a conversation with Alex that didn’t result in begging or tears. She’d been excited and terrified to see Alex again today. She’d known they’d be reopening something, though whether a gift or a wound still remains to be seen.

She still isn’t sure. And until she is, there’s only so much detail she’s willing to provide Alex about her life and the people in it. So she goes for the simplest and most honest answer: “No, Alex, I didn’t move here alone.”

And there it is.

Maggie knows she doesn’t imagine the cloud that passes over Alex’s eyes.

“Oh,” Alex says. “That’s -- that’s good. I’m happy for you. What’s her name?”

“Sofia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me! Happy Sanvers ending, I promise!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Facebook threw up a picture Kara posted of Alex, pressing a kiss to the cheek of some beautiful, smiling brunette, with Kara’s caption: “Cuties! #getaroom”
> 
> And Maggie felt like the floor had dropped out from under her, yet again.
> 
> “Stop it,” Eduardo said. “She’s allowed to move on. God knows you have, in some form or another, with Vivienne. Even though I hate it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references to **BDSM** in this chapter, not between Alex and Maggie. Two characters talk about **self-harm** , too, though it's benign enough that I think most people should be fine -- still, better safe than sorry in terms of content warnings.
> 
> Edit: I've gotten some feedback that some folks found elements of this chapter to be **dub-con-ish** , related to the items above. I didn't intend it that way, which is why I didn't warn it before, but I totally see why people read it that way, so: better late than never, and I apologize to anyone who didn't get the content warning they needed in advance. Without spoiling too much, I'll just say that everything Maggie does/experiences in this chapter is explicitly consensual but there's some of it that Eduardo would rather not be roped into, but since he is a part of Maggie, he doesn't always have much say in the matter.
> 
> This chapter is as dark as this fic gets.
> 
> Happy Sanvers ending ahoy, I promise. Two chapters after this one.

Maggie made a lot of questionable romantic and sexual decisions on her way to Kate.

It took a year before she was even ready to consider it, beyond that random make-out session with Jaylin in Atlanta.

When talking to new women stopped feeling like betrayal, like cheating on a relationship that was long over, she sought out the ones who were as far removed from Alex as she could find. She dated a woman five years younger than her and another one ten years older. Both of them saw her badge and her gun and assumed that must mean she had her shit together; both of them were disappointed to learn that the badge and the gun were basically the only thing she’d ever done right. She dated a sweet, blonde schoolteacher who didn’t care at all about the badge and the gun, but ended that before it could turn into another situation like so many other women she’d dated, who couldn’t handle the danger and the hours associated with her job. 

She spent most nights with Eduardo, at home, running her fingers over his head and not talking and watching HGTV and dreaming about domesticity.

After a string of broken and failed attempts over a year she stumbled into…  _ something _ with a woman named Vivienne: a tall, drop-dead gorgeous power femme with a puma named Alaric for a daemon. It wasn’t the first time Maggie had gotten involved with someone who got off on power, but it was the first time she’d gotten in this deep, and she found that it felt better than anything she’d had since Alex. Vivienne was a mid-level corporate executive with high-level ambitions, so she understood Maggie’s hours and her professional commitments. And she wasn’t in the pocket of the crime lords, so she respected that Maggie was a good cop. They’d go out for dinner, they’d watch movies, they’d take walks. 

And once or twice a week Maggie would kneel for her, let Vivienne tie her up and order her around and push her to the sensory limits of what her body could enjoy. 

For all that, Vivienne was possibly the most thoughtful, most conscientious lover that Maggie had ever had. Maybe even moreso than Alex, if only because Alex had always had so much trouble with communication, while Vivienne took that to be the bedrock of any relationship she was willing to have. They talked about limits, they talked about safewords, they debriefed every morning after; they talked so much about their sex life that Maggie sometimes wondered how she was still able to find it  _ sexy _ .

But she found herself craving what Vivienne gave her. There was relief, such sweet relief, in giving herself over so fully to someone else, in handing over all responsibilities except sensation and obedience. It was cathartic when they played with pain.

During their sessions, Alaric would pin Eduardo on his back and set his powerful jaws tenderly over Eduardo’s throat, never closing them, never pinching, but holding him down with the potential of what he could do.

“I don’t like this,” Eduardo said to Maggie, a few weeks into the relationship. “I don’t know why we’re doing it.”

“We’re doing it because I like it,” Maggie said, inspecting a bruise on the back of her thigh. “This actually makes me feel  _ better _ .”

What a relief, for those sessions, to so wholly  _ belong _ to someone. To be nothing but someone who belonged to someone else.

But then, one day, she logged onto Facebook.

She didn’t do it often, but it was useful for work sometimes if you were in the right circles to find out about alien-friendly events.

So she logged into Facebook and found that something about its algorithm had changed and it threw a picture from Kara’s feed up into her timeline even though Maggie had muted her years ago, when she was in Atlanta right after the breakup. She’d muted her so long ago that she’d forgotten that she hadn’t ever fully unfriended her.

(She’d never unfriended Alex, either.)

(Couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.)

Facebook threw up a picture Kara posted of Alex, pressing a kiss to the cheek of some beautiful, smiling brunette, with Kara’s caption: “Cuties! #getaroom”

And Maggie felt like the floor had dropped out from under her, yet again.

“Stop it,” Eduardo said. “She’s allowed to move on. God knows you have, in some form or another, with Vivienne. Even though I hate it.”

God, it had been  _ two years _ , and she still felt like this.

She went to Vivienne’s apartment that night after work instead of her own, and as soon as the door closed behind her, she dropped to her knees.

“Whoa,” Vivienne said. She ran her fingers through Maggie’s hair as the puma stalked around them, predatory. “What’s bringing this out of you?”

“I need you to push me,” Maggie murmured, leaning into Vivienne’s hand. “Please.”

“Okay,” Vivienne said, “But I’d like to talk about it.”

And Maggie could only shake her head. “Tomorrow. I promise we can talk tomorrow.”

Vivienne nodded. “How hard do you want me to push you?”

Maggie just sagged and said, “All the way to the edge.”

So Vivienne did. She tied Maggie up and made her beg and whimper and cry out; set impossible rules and tenderly punished her for breaking them; let Maggie surf on a sea of endorphins that dragged her out of the pit of self-loathing where she’d fallen. Maggie knew she’d be bruised the next day, knew she’d be too sore to have sex again for another week, but when she paused to think rationally her mind would phase over into other more sentient thoughts, like thoughts of how she still hadn’t gotten over the woman who’d dumped her two years earlier, and so she twisted and sweated and asked for more. 

Eduardo writhed unhappily, pinned under Alaric. “This isn’t right, Maggie, why are we doing this, this isn’t right--”

Vivienne strode over and did something nobody had ever done, not in all of Maggie and Eduardo’s life.

She nudged Alaric out of the way and put her hands on Eduardo.

She drew him up into her arms, against her chest, while he bucked and clawed and howled: “Let me go! Maggie -- make her let me go!”

But Maggie was lost, nauseous and vulnerable and soaked in the most visceral discomfort she’d ever experienced; it wasn’t pain, but in some ways she wished it was, because pain was a discomfort her brain could process. She fumbled up onto her knees and retched once, twice, her fingernails digging into her palms with her hands still tied behind her back. The world spun and she shivered, sweating in cold.

She had a safeword. She knew her safeword. Just say  _ kryptonite _ , she thought, just say  _ kryptonite _ and it stops. Say it and Vivienne takes her hands off Eduardo.

But she couldn’t; she both did and didn’t want to call it out, she both did and didn’t want this to end, because even this, the worst feeling she’d ever experienced, was on some level better than having to  _ think _ . She gagged, and she retched, and she said nothing.

And then suddenly: she felt nothing.

She collapsed onto her stomach on the bed, panting.

Gentle hands untied her wrists and stroked where the skin was red, and then gently manoeuvred her under the covers.

Vaguely, she was aware of Alaric nudging Eduardo up onto the bed as well, near her feet.

Vivienne slipped into the bed beside her, wrapped her arms around her, and crooned. “Hush,” she whispered. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

When Maggie’s heart rate had slowed, when she’d stopped shivering, Vivienne slipped out of the bed. She came back a few minutes later with a glass of water and a mug of what smelled like camomile tea.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she said quietly, coaxing Maggie to sit up. “Tea first. Let’s let the water come up to room temperature before you drink it.”

Maggie, dully, took the tea and settled into the crook of Vivienne’s arm, sipping it slowly while gentle fingers combed through her hair. Near the foot of the bed, Alaric was licking Eduardo’s fur into place while Eduardo lay facing the door to the room, unmoving.

In the morning, Maggie and Vivienne made breakfast together quietly, and then sat together at the table. Vivienne put a sofa throw cushion on Maggie’s chair, because she knew Maggie would be sore.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to play with you last night,” Vivienne apologized. “I could tell you weren’t okay before we even started, but you asked, and…” She looked to the side, toward the pattern of light cast against the floor through the kitchen window.

Maggie sighed. She smelled coffee and the char of black toast. They had talked, before, about whether Vivienne could touch Eduardo in their scenes. Maggie had said she didn’t know whether that was something she’d like, but that she was open to trying it. “I guess that just wasn’t for me,” she said. “Now we know.”

But Vivienne shook her head. “You needed to safeword, didn’t you?”

“Yes, you did,” Eduardo said. He sat on the floor with his back to Maggie, facing the apartment door. “That was terrible.”

Maggie set down her bagel and ran the back of her wrist over her forehead. “Yeah. I should have.”

“But you didn’t,” Vivienne pressed.

“No, I didn’t. 

They ate a little longer, in silence. Or, well, Vivienne ate. Maggie pushed her bagel around her plate and sipped at her coffee, avoiding eye contact.

“Maggie, I think we need to take a step back,” Vivienne said, eventually.

That got Maggie’s attention -- because of course, this good thing, this healthy relationship (well, until last night, she amended to herself), would have to go, too, like everything else did. “No--why?”

“I need to trust that you can tell me to stop, Maggie. I need to know that you’d never let me  _ actually _ hurt you.”

“No, I--I can. Last night was a one-off, I guess we crossed a limit I didn’t know I had. We can talk about limits again, maybe?”

But Vivienne shook her head gently. “Maggie, I--” she swallowed and glanced down at Alaric. He sat on the floor beside her, one paw on her lap, and looked up at her kindly. “I think you’re amazing, Maggie. You’re smart, and you’re sweet, and you’re probably the hottest girl I’ve ever been with in my life. But…” She trailed off and leaned forward, dropping an elbow to the tabletop and scratching at one well-maintained eyebrow with a perfectly-manicured fingernail. “People get into kink for a lot of reasons and not all of them are safe.” She looked up at Maggie then, squarely. Her lips were faintly stained with the dregs of the lipstick she wore every day, not yet reapplied that morning, and her hair was down and a little frizzy, and Maggie stared at the flyaways to avoid staring at anything else.

“Last night kind of cemented something I’d been feeling for awhile,” Vivienne continued, “that your reason didn’t seem to be one of the healthy ones. You aren’t doing this with me because it turns you on.”

Maggie opened her mouth to reply, but Vivienne pushed on: “I’m not saying it  _ doesn’t _ turn you on. But more than that, it almost feels to me like -- like a kind of self-harm. Like you’re having me hurt you to try to exorcise some deeper spirits, and I don’t…” She sniffed, wetly. She must be trying not to cry. Maggie was both surprised and a little gratified by it, and felt like an ass for the gratification part.

Vivienne rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “I’ve never met anyone who talks so little to their daemon. You two can go days and barely exchange a word. You barely ever touch each other. It’s just…” she swallowed, “There’s something unsettled in your soul, Maggie, even I can see it. And I think you’re just… I think you get relief from feeling a different, more immediate kind of pain. But I just--I can’t be the weapon you use to hurt yourself. I think you need to work on those ghosts for yourself. Maybe see a therapist? And I’ll be here for you, I’ll be here with you every step if that helps, but not--not sexually, at least not for now.”

They sat quietly, opposite one another, for a long moment, and then Maggie stood up, wordlessly, abandoning half her coffee and most of her bagel, and walked to the bedroom.

“Maggie?” Vivienne asked.

But Maggie didn’t answer. She shucked out of the pyjamas she’d borrowed and found the clothes she’d taken off last night, sliding them on carefully over aches and bruises.

“Maggie, please, don’t,” Vivienne pled softly. Maggie looked over: Vivienne was standing in the doorway, watching her.

“Yeah, no,” Maggie snarled, tugging her jacket on and pulling her hair free of the collar. She pushed past Vivienne and grabbed her helmet from where it sat on a table near the door. “I’ve taken this shit my entire life, Viv. I don’t need to take it from you.”

“Maggie, this isn’t what I want,” Vivienne insisted. “I don’t want to end  _ everything _ , I just--”

“Yeah? Well, I do,” Maggie spat. “See you around.”

That night, Maggie sat on the floor under her bedroom window and listened to the sound of sirens as she worked part way through a bottle of Beam, Eduardo flopped a few feet away.

“Fuck her, anyway,” Maggie muttered.

“Fuck you both,” Eduardo growled. “I hated what we did with them.” 

Maggie chuckled drunkenly and waved the bottle in his direction. “Cheers.” She took another swig.

She woke up hungover the next morning. She called in sick, threw up twice, then spent the morning dozing and sipping gatorade and trying to nibble on dry toast.

The morning after that, she rolled over in bed, her eyes feeling like they’d had gauze stuffed under the lids, her mouth feeling like she’d swallowed half the Sahara.

Eduardo glared at her from across the duvet.

“God,” she groaned at him. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” he gritted back.

She fumbled for her phone on the nightstand and tugged it off the charging cable.

After a few rounds with the “forgotten password” function, she managed to log into her health insurance portal, and thumbed her way over to the section on therapists.

She filtered the list by gender -- women only -- and then by those accepting new patients, and then by the “LGBTQ friendly” tag, and then by location to avoid anyone whose office was close enough to her precinct that someone from work might see her walking in. That narrowed her down to four names. The second one listed “human-daemon relationships” among her areas of focus.

Maggie clicked on her phone number and called.

Maggie had gone a few rounds with therapists before, mostly mandated sessions after high-intensity work-related stuff, and hadn’t liked it. Emily had tried to get her to go to one, back when their relationship had been falling apart, and Maggie had refused: she didn’t need yet  _ another _ over-educated city-bred white woman sweet-talking at her while silently judging her brown, gay, rural problem-filled backstory.

But now, well.

Something had to change.

The therapist she chose wasn’t white, and based on Maggie’s intuitive assessment, possibly not straight either, so that helped. She was tall and grey-haired and serious almost to the point of being stern, which suited Maggie well. Most therapists had accessible-looking daemons -- dogs, or house cats, or maybe, like, koalas, but Dr. Victor had a snowy owl. 

Maggie sat down in the chair opposite her desk and Eduardo sat beside her, a few inches away, but eyeing intently the doctor and the owl. Maggie noticed when Dr. Victor took it in, the distance between Eduardo and her their lack of intimacy.

“What brings you here today?” she asked.

Maggie took a deep breath. “I don’t even know how to talk about it,” she said. She gestured vaguely at Eduardo. “We’ve barely talked since I was fourteen. I can’t make the good things in my life last, and when they end, I punish myself for them. I just… I need to learn how to be… okay. I’m,  _ we’re _ , never really just…  _ okay _ .” She laughed quietly, more to herself than to anyone else. “I’m not making sense.”

“Just talking is the first step,”  Dr. Victor said. “Making sense can come later. What happened when you were fourteen? Let’s start there.”

Maggie looked over at Eduardo, who looked up at her. She remembered that violent twisting of her gut, that last time he’d changed, in the frigid darkness outside her childhood home.

How much of themselves had they left there, in that snowbank beside her parents’ neatly-shoveled walkway?

She took a deep breath and told the story she hadn’t told anyone since Alex and Eliza.

Maggie was four months into therapy when she met Kate in a Dunkin’ Donuts a few blocks from a crime scene.

(A month or so later, Kate would confide, in bed, that she’d hidden in the crowd of onlookers at the crime scene barrier and had tailed Maggie when she went to grab herself a coffee and a snack. She’d known that Bruno Mannheim had been behind the hostage-taking, and was hoping for a little insight into how the police intel overlapped with her own.)

Kate’s daemon, a ferret named Keela that hid under her cape when she fought, found an easy kinship with Eduardo.

“I like her,” Eduardo said to Maggie, a few days in. 

Maggie and Eduardo talked more. Sometimes Maggie forced it upon them, when the last thing either of them wanted to do was to think about the other. But Dr. Victor had told them that they’d keep ignoring one another so long as that was easiest and most comfortable, and so, maybe, they just needed to be uncomfortable for awhile.

They could handle that.

Maggie was attracted to Kate, and enjoyed her company, and felt a strong affection for her. They respected one another. The sex was tamer than what Maggie had had with Vivienne and less viscerally intimate than what she’d had with Alex, but it was attentive and satisfying and, at times, breathtakingly acrobatic. Over time, Maggie thought, this would get deeper. Over time, she’d feel their bond strengthen from affection into something more.

Six months passed, then seven.

They were pushing eight when Maggie asked if they could sit down together after work.

“I don’t -- I don’t think this is going anywhere,” she said quietly, nodding between them.

Kate smiled, and shrugged, and covered Maggie’s hand with her own. “I think you’re right.”

“We’re good,” Maggie began --

“--but we’re never going to be great,” Kate finished.

They smiled, and hugged one another, and Kate collected the few items she’d allowed to gather at Maggie’s apartment.

Alone in the apartment that evening, Maggie looked down at Eduardo, and Eduardo looked up at her.

“HGTV?” he asked, with a soft chuckle.

Maggie laughed drily and shook her head. “Jerk,” she said, affectionately.

She didn’t touch the bottle of whiskey that lived in the cabinet above the fridge.

She still wasn’t ready for Sofia when she came along four months later.

 

\--

 

“Sofia,” Maggie says.

“Sofia,” Alex repeats, nodding. “That’s -- that’s great.” She inhales deeply and then lifts her empty mug, again, as if to take a sip from it, and then scowls upon remembering that it’s empty. “You know what? I’m just -- I think I  _ am  _ going to get a top-up on this, I’ll be right back.” Curie sits taller on her shoulder and beats her wings three, four times, powerfully, as Alex stands. Maggie watches her back as she walks away.

“You complete and utter asshole,” Eduardo says to Maggie, without malice. “‘Sofia’? That’s how you’re going to answer that question?” 

Maggie just smiles a little and scratches him behind the ears while she waits. Alex is standing in line, holding her mug, talking to Curie. 

“Yeah,” Maggie says finally, “that’s how I’m going to answer that question for now.”

While Maggie watches, Alex straightens her shoulders, as though steeling herself for something, and steps out of line. She goes to put her mug in the bus bin and then turns back toward their table.

_ Shit _ , Maggie thinks.  _ That’s not what was supposed to happen _ .

“You know, um, I -- I should go,” Alex says as she approaches. She reaches for her jacket on the back of the chair. “I just remembered that I have a… thing. You know J’onn, he’s always… anyway. It was nice to see you again, Maggie. I’m so glad to hear you’re doing so well. I’ll look forward to working cases with you. Again.”

And Maggie knows a duck-and-weave when she sees one.

“No, Alex, I --”

But Alex is already walking toward the door.

“Shit,” Eduardo spits. “You can’t let just her walk away like that because she thinks  _ Sofia _ is--” 

“No, I can’t,” Maggie agrees. She stands, hurriedly grabs her mug and puts it in the bus bin, and dashes out the door after Alex, into the afternoon sunlight.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter went nuts. Like, 7500+ words nuts. And it had a good break-point in the middle so I decided to split it into more manageable bites and up the chapter count. The next chapter should be up within a few days.
> 
> You'll find out a bit more about Sofia in this chapter, though. :)

Maggie will always remember the sight of Alex floating in a tank of water.

Curie hovered beside her, her wings spread as though caught mid-flight. Alex would tell Maggie, later, that Curie had stayed on her shoulder until the water was too deep, and then she’d flown for as long as she could but she wasn’t built to fly in small spaces without winds or updrafts to carry her, and then she’d spread her wings across the water’s surface and done her best to keep her head up while Alex floated in her makeshift life preserver.

Kara broke the glass and they’d both flopped out, skidding across the concrete alongside one another, and Alex had reached for Curie, pulled the falcon tight against her chest, even before Maggie and Kara and Eduardo and Hansel could make it over to them. When Maggie and Kara collapsed to their knees beside Alex, she loosened her grip just enough to reach up to them. Curie slipped down but Hansel and Eduardo were there to catch her, Hansel wiping the water from her feathers and Eduardo curling himself around her as best he could, warming her with his thick fur and full tail. 

Curie settled back into Alex’s chest before Kara picked them both up, and Maggie helped to pull Kara’s cape up and over her shoulder and tuck it over and around the cold, wet bodies in her arms. Hansel scampered up and clung to the cape himself, and then Kara looked at Maggie.

“The DEO van will be here in a few minutes, but--”

“ _ Go _ ,” Maggie said, shooing her away with both hands, “get her warm, get her safe, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Kara nodded and took off.

Maggie and Eduardo stood there, damp in the dark, and watched Supergirl carry the loves of their lives off into the dark sky.

“We almost lost her,” Maggie said quietly, “and she never would have known that we--”

“Maybe we should never tell her,” Eduardo said. “Imagine everything that could go wrong if she found out?”

The DEO vans pulled up a few minutes later and J’onn hopped out of the passenger side of the first one, followed by his crocodile. The crocodile, Maggie had learned, was a fabrication of J’onn’s sophisticated shapeshifting abilities, modeled after Hank Henshaw’s daemon; Martians didn’t have real daemons.

“She’s alive,” Maggie said to him.

J’onn nodded. He delegated the oversight of the scene to the lead forensic scientist to check for evidence of any other alien-related knowledge. Then he transformed into his natural self, the crocodile disappearing in the process, and held an arm out for Maggie. Maggie picked up Eduardo, and J’onn picked up Maggie, and moments later they landed on the DEO balcony.

In the med bay, Alex was sedated and propped on her side while Hamilton stitched the wound in her shoulder. Her wet clothes had been removed and replaced with a dry uniform tank top and pants. Curie slept beside her, nestled in the crook between her body and her arm. 

Kara, her uniform still damp, stood off to the side, her arms crossed over her chest, Hansel gripping her upper arm. When she looked over and saw Maggie, she smiled a little and stepped out into the hall.

“Good,” she said. “You stay with her. I’ve got some unfinished business with our friend Rick.”

Maggie slipped into the med bay, Eduardo shuffling alongside. They watched as Hamilton set a sterile pad over the stitches and then helped Alex’s limp body to settle back onto the bed.

“She’s exhausted,” Hamilton said, her first acknowledgment that Maggie was in the room. “And her body temperature was low, but it’s coming back up under the lamps, so it’s better not to cover her up.” She let out a dry laugh. “She’s not dehydrated. She must have drunk some of the water. The forensic team will bring back some samples so we can test it for toxins or contaminants, but based on our scans, it looks like she’s physically fine, for the most part. She’ll be hungry when she wakes up and she’ll need to rest for a few days.   


Maggie just nodded, dumbly.

Hamilton left, and Alex slept on with Curie nestled against her side. There was no IV, so Maggie knew that Alex would wake up eventually, within the next few hours at most. Even if only for a few minutes. After the nightmare of the previous 24 hours, Maggie felt both wired and bone-tired; she longed to slip onto that cot beside Alex, to cling to her, to feel her heart beating under her palm, and to sleep on her shoulder, but she knew that she could never sleep, not until she’d seen Alex’s eyes open. 

She walked to the glass wall and watched the agents in black scurrying around like so many small animals. She felt safer, somehow, like this, with Alex behind her. The med bay was accessible only by the door she’d come in, from the main atrium, and standing like this Maggie could see everyone who came near. 

Briefly, she imagined Eduardo, standing as he so often did, with his back to her, facing the door.

But Eduardo wasn’t facing the door, this time. He sat with his back to Maggie, facing Alex and Curie.

And that’s how they stayed, for a hour, maybe more. Maggie didn’t notice her legs cramping from wearing her boots for so long, didn’t notice her jeans drying against her skin. 

“I think they’re waking up,” Eduardo said suddenly, and Maggie began to turn just as Alex’s voice — Alex’s perfect, quiet, beautiful voice — said “Hey, you.”

Maggie went to her, and reached for her, and wanted to cut open her own skin to tuck Alex inside of it, safe and warm against her heart.

Eduardo leapt up onto the foot of the cot. Curie slipped free of Alex’s arm and hopped to him, nestling into his fur as he curled around her, warm and protective. Maggie felt Alex sag a little toward her in response.

Maggie wanted to be the first thing Alex saw every time Alex woke up for the rest of her life. 

She wanted to put herself between Alex and the world, to the extent that Alex would let her, and she wondered if she’d ever be brave enough to put that in words.

But then Alex sat up, and leaned toward her, and put her hand on her face, and said, “I love you, Maggie Sawyer.”

And in the face of so much love, how could there ever be room for fear?

“I love you, Alex Danvers,” Maggie replied.

Maggie didn’t object to Kara escorting them back to Alex’s in the morning. A DEO team had gone over earlier, while Maggie and Kara had still been desperately looking for Alex, and they’d found a few high-end bugs but no cameras. Maggie felt a fleeting bit of relief at the knowledge that, at least, he’d never  _ seen _ any of the intimacies that she and Alex had shared, though the thought of what he’d  _ heard _ made her shudder. It wasn’t the sex, so much; neither of them were very vocal. It was the emotional intimacies: Alex crying in Maggie’s arms after the incident with her father. Maggie — God, Maggie telling Alex about her father, about Eliza Wilke. Their conversation about Emily.

He could have heard any of it. All of it. 

Kara swept the apartment when she arrived, squinting at walls and cabinets and the TV and the fireplace for anything her x-ray vision might reveal. 

“Okay,” she said, and Maggie entered, her arm around Alex, who leaned into her and cradled Curie.

“Bed or couch?” Maggie asked.

“Couch,” Alex said. “I need to eat something before I do any more sleeping.”

Maggie nodded and walked her to the couch. In her peripheral vision, Kara’s fists clenched and unclenched, clearly wanting to reach out and help but trying to respect their space.

“I can stay for awhile,” Kara offered.”Just until, you know, things settle.”

But Alex shook her head. “I need to be okay being here without superpowered protection. And Maggie will be here.” She looked at Maggie. “Right?”

Maggie nodded and sat down on the couch beside Alex, a hand on her cool arm. “Couldn’t drag me away,” she said quietly. 

Kara shifted nervously from foot to foot, warring with herself. “Okay. But if you need  _ anything _ —“

“We’ll call,” Maggie said, “Don’t worry. And I’ll check in with you this afternoon.”

Kara smiled at her, gratefully, and nodded. 

After Kara left, Maggie couldn’t help fussing. She made rooibos tea and ordered Chinese food - wonton soup and rice and vegetables — and helped Alex change into sweats and thick socks while they waited. The food came, and they watched half a nature documentary on birds, Alex cuddled back against Maggie under a blanket, with the fire on and Curie and Eduardo wrapped around one another beside them. 

Maggie pulled her closer. “I love you,” she murmured into Alex’s ear, just because she could.

“I love you too,” Alex said, rubbing her hand up and down Maggie’s forearm.

They made it to the early afternoon without sleeping. Maggie sent Kara a quick text,  _ All OK here, gonna take a nap now,  _ and then climbed into bed beside Alex, curling into her back. When Maggie woke it was dark, and she and Alex had moved apart a little in sleep, overheating. 

Alex shifted a little, waking up just a few moments after Maggie did, and rolled over to smile sleepily into Maggie’s eyes.

“Hey,” she said, “I love you.”

“Hey,” Maggie replied, grinning, reaching an arm out for her, “I love you too.”

Eduardo and Curie stirred at their feet. Curie looked more herself when she sat up, and then stood, and then beat her wings powerfully to lift up off the bed while Maggie, Alex, and Eduardo watched.

She was beautiful, Maggie thought. She’d always thought that: a falcon was a striking bird. But in this moment, in the amber light of the fire they’d left on, her feathers reflected blue lit with gold, and she looked proud and powerful and undefeated, hovering in the air over the bed. 

And then her lingering tiredness surfaced, and she began to lower herself down to the bed again. She was going to Alex, going to lie with her or to perch on her outstretched arm, but then —

Oh,  _ then _ —

Talons sharp as spires, gentle as a lover’s hands, closed around Maggie’s forearm, and Curie perched there.

Beside her Alex gasped, her head tilting back and then dipping forward against Maggie’s bare shoulder, while Maggie stared, dumbfounded, at this daemon, at  _ someone else’s daemon _ , touching her skin.

This had never happened to her before.

Five years with Emily and they’d never felt ready to touch each others’ daemons.

By her feet, Eduardo stared at her, inscrutable, saying nothing.

On the edge of panic, Maggie looked down at Alex, who had rolled into Maggie’s shoulder and was panting there, open-mouthed, clutching at her elbow, as though trying to tug herself closer.

“Alex, what should I — are you okay, I don’t know what to—“

“Touch her,” Alex gasped, her breath warm and damp on Maggie’s skin, “hold her.”

Carefully, Maggie tugged her forearm out from where it was trapped between their bodies and lifted it toward Curie, whose piercing eyes were trained on Maggie. Alex loosened her grip on Maggie’s elbow to allow the movement, curling her hands over Maggie’s shoulder instead.

“Yes,” Curie said, eyeing Maggie’s hovering hand. Her voice resonated like a sounded bell, soft and strong and clear and musical and among the most beautiful things Maggie had ever heard, “Yes, I’d like that.”

And so Maggie did. She ran her fingers down the grain of the feathers, felt their softness and their grooves and their fine little spines, and Curie ruffled her feathers and preened a little, rolling her head into the touch. It was so much more intimate than sex or kissing; Maggie felt even closer to Alex, now, than she’d felt when she’d been  _ inside _ her. Alex sighed against Maggie’s skin, a voiced, breathy sound that somehow conveyed that profound intimacy without being erotic at all. Alex would explain, later, that the sensation transcended the sexual; that it was both the safest and most vulnerable she had ever felt. When you smell something that brings you back to the happiest moment of your childhood — take that sensation and turn it into something full-bodied, visceral, encompassing all of your senses and thoughts.

“It felt like — like recognition,” Alex said, her voice full of wonder. “Like the difference between being looked at and being  _ seen _ .”

She’d spend the next two weeks buried in poetry books, trying to find words that she ultimately decided could not possibly exist.

But in that moment, Maggie ran her hand down Curie’s smooth, strong back with the care she’d give to something much more fragile, and Alex clawed red lines into the skin of Maggie’s shoulders, so displaced and euphoric behind fluttering eyelids. 

“Yes,” she whispered, and then pressed her open mouth to the curve of Maggie’s shoulder as Maggie’s fingernails trailed lightly down Curie’s spine, “oh,  _ yes _ .”  

And then, wordlessly, Curie stepped off Maggie’s arm onto the blanket stretched tight over her stomach. Then she settled down, leaning into the curve of Maggie’s elbow, and closed her eyes.

Against her other arm, Alex relaxed, her breath returning, after a moment, to normal. And then, in a few minutes, she, too, had fallen asleep again, sagging into Maggie’s body as though she wanted to merge and melt entirely into her.

From the foot of the bed, Eduardo had watched all of this. 

_ Won’t you go to her _ , Maggie wanted to ask. But she knew, everyone knew, that that wasn’t how this worked. He’d go on his own, if he wanted to, eventually.

He rarely wanted what she wanted. She wouldn’t be surprised if he never let Alex touch him.

With Curie in one arm and Alex in the other, Maggie dozed off again.

 

—

  
  


“Alex!” Maggie calls. She raises a hand against the glare of the sunlight, squinting in both directions down the sidewalk. It’s a busy day, there are a lot of people, a lot of daemons.

“That way,” Eduardo says. “I see Curie.” He takes off down the road, and Maggie doesn’t need to wait for the tug of their bond to chase after him. Sure enough, with a duck and a weave around some people, she recognizes Alex’s shape and gait and the falcon fluttering near her shoulder.

As they approach, Curie turns and glares at them. She dives toward Eduardo, talons bared, and he holds back, but doesn’t raise his hackles or show his teeth.

“Alex, wait,” Maggie calls, and Alex takes one more step, and then another, and then falters, her shoulders drooping.

When Maggie catches Alex, ducks past and turns to face her, Alex’s eyes are red-rimmed.

“Alex,” Maggie says softly, sadly, but Alex just shakes her head, hands up near her shoulders. Curie’s wings beat in the air above their heads, and Maggie remembers how soft and strong her muscles and feathers.

“You caught me,” Alex says, her voice both defensive and defeated. “It’s been four years and I’m not over you. I’m so glad you’ve moved on, that you’re happy, but I’d just… a few months ago I finally realized I would never get over you, that you’d always be a regret, that you’d always be the best thing that  _ almost _ happened to me, until I made you leave.”

“Alex—“

“But now you’re here,” Alex presses on, pinching the bridge of her nose, “and all these little details I thought I’d forgotten — the way you stand, the freckles near your mouth, the way you tilt your head when you’re listening — they all came rushing to the surface again. And now you’re back, and I’m going to start seeing you at work again, and I’m going to be reminded, over and over again, of what might have been the biggest mistake I ever made.”

“What was the mistake?”

Alex looks up. “What do you mean?”

“What was the mistake? Was it being with me, or ending things with me?”

“Oh, Maggie,” Alex sighs, “Being with you was the best decision I ever made. And four years later, I’m still afraid that breaking up with you might have been the worst.” She wrings her hands. “And now you — you look  _ so great _ , Maggie, you look happy, and healthy, and just—“ she gestures at Eduardo, who’s looking up at her, head cocked, “balanced. In tune. And I couldn’t be happier for you, really. Sofia must be good for you, but — I’m sorry, Maggie, I’m not going to ask to meet her, at least not now.”

And Maggie can’t help but laugh a little, quietly.

“Maggie—“

“You made the right decision,” Maggie says, reaching into her back pocket for her phone. 

“I’m glad you feel—“

“It’s not what you think,” Maggie interrupts. She uses her thumbprint to unlock her phone and opens the photo app. “If we hadn’t broken up when we did, you would have spent the rest of our relationship, as long as it would have lasted, wondering whether you made the right decision. Wondering if you’d cut out a part of yourself that mattered so that you could be with me. And that wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.” She thumbs through the photos, crime scene photos and screenshots of apartment listings and snaps from her farewell beers with her old precinct at Gotham, before she finds the one she wants and taps it to open it.

“This is Sofia,” she says, and turns the phone to Alex.

The photo she opened was taken about two months ago. Sofia had just lost her upper right canine tooth and had taken a selfie, grinning widely into Maggie’s camera, to send to her parents. Now, the adult tooth has half grown in, twisted in its socket.

Maggie sighs with the reminder that the girl is going to need braces.

But Alex blinks at the picture on the phone. When the screen goes dark, Alex taps it to wake it up again before it locks.

“That’s a kid,” Alex says. “I mean, of course it’s a kid, but it’s — is she  _ your _ kid?”

Maggie shrugs, and sighs. “It’s complicated. But legally, yeah. I mean, I’m her legal guardian and I’m the only one raising her.” She clicks the phone to sleep and then pockets it again so that Alex will look at her. “Can we —“ she gestures across the street, where there’s a small city park with a few benches. “Can we go sit? Please? I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Alex nods stiffly and gestures Maggie ahead of her, across the road. The park benches are the long kind, with metal arms spaced along them, and Alex leaves one of those metal arms between them when she sits. Curie perches on her lap, and Eduardo hops up beside Maggie, resting his head and front paws in her lap. Maggie digs her fingers into Eduardo’s fur for strength, and he flexes his claws against her thighs in support.

Well, Maggie thinks, here it goes. Whatever it is: here it goes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: -writes 7,000 words for ch. 8, with a little more to write
> 
> -Decides 7,000 words is too long for one chapter. Publishes the first 3500ish as Ch. 8 and pushes the rest to ch. 9
> 
> -Sits down to write that "little more" needed to finish ch. 9
> 
> -Runs word count
> 
> -...somehow ch. 9 is almost 8,000 words. How did "a little more" turn into 4,500 words?
> 
> -Remembers I thought 7,000 words was too long for one chapter. Should I cut this one in half?
> 
> -...naaaaaaaaah
> 
> -(Also remembers how this fic wasn't going to go over 20,000 words HA HA HA)
> 
>  
> 
> So here. Have a monster chapter.

“It’s not as uncommon as you’d think, you know. To have a tough relationship with your daemon.” Dr. Victor sat straight and tall behind her desk, elbows resting squarely on her armrests. She was backlit by the large window in her office, which threw her face into shadow, and somehow that made her easier to talk to, and easier to listen to: Maggie could think of her as a kind of disembodied voice, if she had to.

“We never want the same things. He gets upset with the things that make me happy. He wants things that make me angry.” Maggie looked over at Eduardo. They were sitting side by side on a padded chair wide enough for both of them with room to spare. He wasn’t all the way by the opposite armrest, but he also still wasn’t touching her. “I’ve never met anyone like us.”

“You probably have, and never knew about it,” Dr. Victor said. “What people tend to lose sight of in situations like yours -- and you won’t like hearing this, but please, hear me out all the way and then you can redirect -- what people lose sight of is that you’re  _ one _ . You’re a single being with two bodies. You can’t want two different things any more than your left hand can want something different from the rest of you.”

“I fractured my left hand in the Academy. At that point my hand wanted something different from the rest of me, in that it wanted to stop hurting all the time.”

Dr. Victor smiled. “Your whole body wanted not to be in pain. All of you wanted that. The only place that felt pain was your hand, because it was injured, so you had to heal it to bring it in line with everything else. But your need and desire to heal your hand, and soothe its pain, wasn’t at odds with the need of any other desire that your body had.”

Maggie slumped. Why did she hate it when the doctor was right?   


“Think about your disagreements over your relationship with Vivienne. That’s the conflict that brought you to me, isn’t it?”

Maggie nodded.

“Why did you like what you did with her?”

Maggie inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly through her nose. She was here to talk, she reminded herself. She was here to be open about herself. “I guess… I didn’t _like_ it, exactly. It’s not really the way I prefer to have sex. But there was something… deeply satisfying about it? I guess?”

“Why?”

Maggie licked her lips and pushed down her pride. “Because it made me feel wanted?” she offered. “And… safe. I felt like the only way I’d be hurt was in the ways I’d consented to. And that was true. Limits were like… electrified fences or something, for her. She never crossed them, never even touched them if she could avoid it. At the end, with -- with Eduardo,” Maggie felt herself blushing, talking about this with her sixty-something therapist, but Dr. Victor didn’t flinch, “I had told her she could try it. And I’d asked her to push me hard that night.”

Dr. Victor nodded. “Okay. Why did you want to be hurt, if that isn’t the kind of sex you prefer?”

Maggie leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, and drove her fingers into her hair. “Because I hurt anyway,” she said quietly. 

Dr. Victor sat quietly, waiting.

“I’ve been lonely almost my whole life, and I’ve just wanted to be…  _ chosen _ by someone,” Maggie continued, after a moment. “Even AJ didn’t really pick me, you know? He would have picked any kid living with my aunt. I just got lucky that I was the one who was there.” Maggie’s throat felt thick and hot. She tugged at the cuffs of her sleeves and struggled to swallow. “When I subbed for Vivienne, it gave me this… freedom to just be...  _ present _ , you know? She commanded all my attention, and she acknowledged it over and over again, and when she made me hurt it was in ways that made  _ sense _ and drove out all the other things about me that made me feel shitty when I thought about them.”

“So what I’m hearing is that you wanted to hurt less emotionally, and the consensual physical pain was a controlled, safe distraction for you,” Dr. Victor said. 

Maggie nodded, her eyes glued to the carpet near the foot of Dr. Victor’s desk.

“Why did Eduardo hate it so much?”

Maggie shrugged and looked over at Eduardo, who had inched a bit closer to her on the chair. “Why did you?”

“It put everything in their hands,” he says, shoulders rolling uncomfortably. “It was only relief for as long as they gave it to us. And we’d hurt, and we’d just… lay everything out for them, every inch, and then it would be over, and we’d be as much of a mess as we were before we started.” His claws flexed against the fabric. “You wanted one hurt to replace another and I just… I didn’t want us to hurt at all.”

Maggie reached out and clenched her fingers in Eduardo’s thick fur. He edged closer to her again and leaned into her thigh.

Dr. Victor cocked her head to the side. 

She didn’t need to say a word for Maggie to understand just how right she’d been.

 

\--

 

Maggie’s palms are sweaty. She rubs them against the grain of her jeans and squints into the sun, toward Alex. 

“I’m not Sofia’s mother,” Maggie begins. “That’s one of the ways we’ve been able to make this work, Sofia and me, is that we both respect that she has parents who love her and I’m not trying to replace them. But I have, legally, adopted her. She’s ten. I’ve started the college fund, I cleaned up her puke when she got the flu last month, I work through the temper tantrums, I sold my bike in Gotham and this weekend we’re going shopping for the car I’ll be using to drive her to soccer practices. The whole nine yards.”

“Okay,” Alex says, brow furrowed.

Maggie swallows. “You remember the first case we worked together? The fight club?”

Alex smiles nervously. “You held my hand. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I never, ever wanted you to let it go.”

Maggie chuckles. “You were  _ so gay.” _

_ “I was so gay _ ,” Alex affirms with a laugh, and it makes Maggie relax, some of the tension between them broken.

“Well, it turns out that there are clubs like that in cities all over the country. Roulette’s was big, but there was one in Gotham that made hers look like a dog and pony show. Dozens of enslaved aliens who never saw the light of day. Six- and even seven-figure gambling. It was disgusting.”

Alex’s eyes climbed up her forehead. “Wait, is Sofia an alien?”

Maggie shook her head. “Human as you and me. Just bear with me.”

Curie perched on Alex’s lap and Alex brought one hand to rest on her back, chastised. She nodded.

“After I’d been in Gotham about a year, I was asked to head a task force to try to take down this fighting ring. I was thrilled. It was a huge responsibility for someone of my rank and seniority. I had a team of a half-dozen officers and detectives, we partnered with Vice, we ran undercover ops for intel until finally, about a year ago, we were ready to run the sting. And we did. We ran it. Arrested dozens of people. CEOs. City councillors. The  _ deputy mayor  _ of Gotham.”

“How did I not hear about this?” Alex asks, aghast.

“Because it was fucking Gotham,” Maggie spits. “I don’t know what I was thinking, believing that a single one of those arrests would stick.”

“Oh, Maggie…”

“Oh, it gets better,” Maggie says sarcastically. “We arrested everyone working for the organization, and it turned out that the whole pyramid was built on the backs of undocumented human workers who were basically being blackmailed. They sold the tickets, they managed the books, they mixed and served the drinks, they cleaned up the blood and disposed of the bodies. There were twenty of them from everywhere. China, Haiti, Syria, Honduras, Mexico… all over the damn planet. They’d get pulled in with offers of good, off-the-books cash pay -- and they  _ were _ paid quite well. But once they were in, once they learned what they were doing and who they were working for, they’d have their passports taken and they’d be kept in line with threats of being reported to ICE if they tried to leave.

“I’m sure you know where this is going,” Maggie chokes. She can’t help it: she feels like such a  _ sucker _ when she thinks about this, when she thinks of the good lives destroyed and the terrible ones protected in the fallout of the op that she led. 

Alex just blinks at her, but her eyes are sad and empathetic, her fingers clutched in her lap while she listens.

“The DA swept in and vacated most of the charges against almost everyone attending this thing and the organizers near the top. The few she didn’t release out of hand were rescued by their high-end, well-connected lawyers. The DEO satellite for the northeast came and took the aliens away; I don’t know what happened to them. And so, two days after this sting that we’d spent two years setting up, the only people left in our jail were these twenty undocumented immigrants. And the chief, he --” Maggie swallows hard and fists her fingers deep in Eduardo’s fur.

“We didn’t do this,” Eduardo says quietly. “You know we didn’t.”

Maggie isn’t so sure.

“The chief just shrugged and went, ‘we caught twenty illegals committing criminal acts, and they’re going to be deported. You’re going to get a promotion for this, Sawyer!’” She drops her voice into a low register, a parody of an impersonation; she’s found ways to make light of it since it happened, to keep herself from crying.

She clenches her fist tighter against Eduardo. 

Alex shakes her head. “I heard about those alien arrests,” she says. “I can… try to find out what happened to them.”

Maggie just shrugs. She isn’t sure she wants to know. The DEO doesn’t have the resources to deport aliens off-world, and they would have been deemed too dangerous to release out into the general population, so they’re probably rotting in holding cells somewhere.

Maggie did get a promotion for the case. It made her sick. But at the end of the day, she wasn’t going to turn down the increase in pay, and she’d done her job well, even if the outcome had sucked.

She continues her story. “I did a bunch of the interrogations myself, and found out that there were these two people, both from Mexico, who met on the job and got married. He was a bouncer. She’d been a bartender and cocktail waitress until she got pregnant, and apparently that changed her body in ways that got her demoted to the clean-up crew. They were both from these really scary parts of Mexico -- he’d fled the gangs in Laredo, she was the daughter of a cartel target in Juarez. But they had this daughter, born in the US, who was a citizen. She could have gone with them when they were deported, but they were leaving with nothing. All their assets were tied to criminal activity and had been frozen. And neither of them had any real connections or resources back in Mexico: they were going to be starting from scratch. And so they -- we had them in holding for a few days while ICE figured out what to do next, and they asked to talk to me.”

Maggie swallows against the tightness in her throat.

“I guess they thought -- I don’t know, I guess I looked like them,” she says, “and so they told me they were leaving their daughter, Sofia, in the US because there was nothing for her in Mexico, and they asked me -- they  _ begged _ me -- to make sure she’d be well taken care of. And, I mean, what could I do? I agreed.”

“So you… adopted her,” Alex says carefully. “I really don’t mean to judge, but that seems a little… extreme?”

And Maggie shakes her head. “It didn’t even cross my mind. But I worked with the social worker. I double-vetted the foster home she’d been assigned to and made sure they were interested in committing to her for the long haul; I didn’t want her getting shuffled around to a new home every six months. They had good feedback from everyone who’d lived with them before, and they’d gone on record as being interested in a foster-to-adopt situation. And then I gave the kid my card and told her that if she needed anything she should call me. 

“I don’t think I expected her to actually do it, but she did. 

“Within a few days, she called me to say that she hadn’t been able to reach her parents -- her, her biological parents. And I explained to her that they were in the process of relocation, so they’d be hard to reach for a little while, but not forever. She was okay with it. Then she called me a few days later to tell me that she’d heard from them, and I thought, okay, that’s it. But then a few days later she called me again, really upset about how she couldn’t speak Spanish to her foster parents because they didn’t understand it, and how would she remember how to speak it like her mamá and papá taught her? So I dug up my rusty Spanish -- you know I’ve almost never spoken it since AJ moved in with my Tia and me -- and we talked a little about, you know, nothing much. Mostly, she just yammered on about a pop band I’d vaguely heard of on the radio and I tried to keep up.”

Alex smiles a little, but doesn’t say anything.

“A week after that, she called me in tears because her foster mother didn’t know how to make empanadas. And at first I thought this was just the kid settling into the reality of being raised by white parents and freaking out a bit, but then we talked more and I realized that her birthday was coming up, and her dad had always made empanadas for her on her birthday. And somehow, just to get her to stop crying on the phone, I told her I knew a great place to get empanadas. And, of course, she thought that meant I was going to take her to get them.”

“Oh, no,” Alex murmurs.

“Oh, yes,” Maggie says, laughing a little. She pushes her fingers through her hair. “So by that point, I realized I had to get in touch with the foster parents, because I didn’t even know if they knew she’d been calling me, and suddenly I’d accidentally led their foster-kid to believe I was taking her out for lunch for her birthday. So I called them up and arranged to come talk to them at their house. They had a nice place; not really fancy, but warm, you know? Lived-in. They had a son a few years older than Sofia who seemed really into the idea of having a kid sister. And they were really happy to meet me. They’re the type of people to really respect the badge. The husband’s brother is a cop out in Central City or something, apparently. He mentioned the ‘thin blue line’ like three times while I was there, and it made me want to puke, because Sofia living with them was basically proof of how the blue line just flat-out didn’t exist in Gotham. Maybe it doesn’t anywhere, honestly.”

“You’ve always done your damnedest to try to make sure it does, and that it falls in the right places,” Alex says quietly.

“That’s true,” Eduardo says.

Maggie just swallows.

“Anyway,” she continues, “they were happy for me to spend time with Sofia. I think they kind of understood that there were things they couldn’t teach her, as a Mexican kid and a second-generation immigrant, that she could learn from me. So I took her for empanadas on her birthday, and it was like the best thing I could have done. Her daemon actually  _ turned into a pig _ while we were eating. And then I dropped her at home and had a slice of cake with the family before I went home. We had a good time, it was chill, and I felt better knowing that it was all sort of above-board if she called me again.

“And then I didn’t hear from her for a few weeks, which was kind of surprising. Part of me wondered if she just didn’t need to talk to me as much since I’d kind of proved I was there, you know? I’d told her I’d answer the phone if she called, and I’d proved it was true, so she didn’t need to keep in touch all the time to be sure I wouldn’t disappear.

“But then I got another call from her, maybe three weeks after her birthday. She was in tears. It turned out her parents had gotten settled in Mexico and they’d gotten a phone number set up, so they’d contacted Sofia’s social worker who had passed on the contact information, since it had always been everyone’s intention that Sofia would be able to keep in touch with them. But apparently she’d been calling them every day and had run her foster family’s long distance bill through the roof, and they’d gotten angry with her about it. They said she could talk to her parents as much as she wanted, but she needed to use Skype. They didn’t understand that her parents could only get online at an internet cafe, and that it was expensive and public and would probably take awhile before they could afford home internet service. So I arranged to take her out for ice cream a few days later and I got her a phone card and showed her how to use it. It was only $20, but it would give her, like, six hundred minutes to Mexico, so I thought that might help for awhile.

“A few days after that, I got a frustrated phone call from her foster parents saying that I’d undermined them. Which, okay, fair enough I guess; I should have asked them before giving them the card. But it just seemed like an easy solution and it didn’t occur to me that it would be a problem. So I apologized. And when Sofia called me a few days later saying they’d limited how often she could use the card, I told her she had to listen to them. She got mad at me. Hung up mid-sentence. That… didn’t feel the best. I called up her foster parents and asked if I could take her out a bit that weekend, and they said okay, as long as I didn’t do anything again that might undermine their authority in their house. I promised them, no, just ice cream. Maybe a trip to the zoo. She was at the age where she was fascinated with animals, her daemon was changing shape like twelve times a day and she was trying to learn what all the different shapes meant. She’s still at that age now, honestly. So they agreed, and I picked her up. Her daemon was usually, you know, easy kid things, a kitten or a pony or a chickadee, but I picked her up that day and he was a damn wolf cub, so I knew she was stressed out and scared.

“So I took her out and, after awhile, she relaxed. Ice cream is magical that way. And there was a baby hippo at the zoo, and those things really have no right to be as cute as they are. That day was the first time she asked me why she couldn’t just come and live with me. And I just, I thought about my one-bedroom apartment and my take-out dinners and my Triumph and I said, you know, I’m not cut out to take care of a kid like you.”

Alex smiled. “Uh oh.”   
  
“Yeah. That was… exactly the wrong thing to say. She got all defensive, like I’d insulted her maturity by implying that she, at the ripe old age of just-barely-ten, needed someone to  _ take care _ of her. So I just said, you know, it’s not you, kid, it’s me. But we can still hang out and be friends. But that didn’t satisfy her. I thought for sure that would be the end of it; I’d drop her off and not hear from her again. That night, I texted her a selfie we’d taken in front of the baby hippo, just as like… I don’t know. A peace offering. And she texted me right back with this string of emojis that was like...”

“Kara-level?” Alex offers.

“Kara-level,” Maggie confirms. And it makes her happy to learn that Kara still over-uses emojis just as she’d done four years ago. It’s soothing to notice these little constants in the midst of so much change. “Lots of heart-eyes and smiles and tiny animals.”

“Cute.”

“Adorable. So I knew we were good. 

“We kept texting from time to time. I’d, like, send her pictures of animals or whatever, and she’d text me stuff about her day at school or how much her foster-brother bugged her, things like that. She writes really well, you know. Way better than you’d expect for her age.”

Alex hums.

“And sometimes, if work was slow, I’d clear with her foster parents to pick her up from school and take her for a snack or something and then drop her off at home. I wasn’t all that motivated to work more than I had to, anyway. The precinct was so fucked, and I was so over it. One of my C.I.s got arrested over some trumped-up charge in the middle of all this, and the judge overruled every agreement we had on the books with him. And it’s not like they were going to retract my promotion, so I just… checked out.”

Maggie knows this disregard for her job is unimaginable for the Maggie of four years ago. She hopes that now that she’s back in National City, it’ll become unimaginable again. Alex just shakes her head in support and disbelief.

“And then one day, Sofia calls me and she’s in tears. I mean, inconsolable. Crying so hard I couldn’t even get her to take a deep enough breath to talk to me for a good five minutes. Like, I was  _ this close _ to getting on my bike and riding all the way across town and into the suburbs to see what was going on, and it was like, almost nine at night, and I had work the next day.”

Alex furrows her brow, that concerned crinkle appearing in her forehead, and Maggie can’t help but feel something tug in her at Alex’s softness, at her concern for this child she’s never met, and that she may never meet.

“I finally talked her down and she told me, in between her hiccups, that her foster parents had asked her to start calling them mom and dad. And it made her furious, because  _ she had parents _ . She  _ has _ parents. Parents who loved her, and still love her, and who wanted what was best for her. 

“I kept thinking, you know, her parents and mine are the exact opposite. Her parents had told me: the shameful thing for them was leaving her, was not raising her themselves, but they really thought she’d have a better shot here, even if they couldn’t be here with her, because back in Mexico they were going to have to rebuild from nothing and they might have targets on their backs from the violence they fled back when they left fifteen years earlier. 

“And so  _ of course _ Sofia didn’t want to call her foster parents the same names she used for her biological parents who love her and who she loves.  _ Of course _ she didn’t.”

“Of course,” Alex echoes softly. From her lap, Curie listens quietly, head cocked. 

“And she started saying to me, again, you know, ‘Why can’t I come live with you, I want to come live with you, Maggie,’ and I kept saying, ‘No, sweetheart, that’s not going to work out, I’m not the right person for that, for you,’ and she said, ‘Yes you are, yes you are.’ And I just shook it off, because -- I mean, you know, I didn’t want a kid, I didn’t know how to raise one, and I thought she was speaking from, like, her heightened emotions, and once she settled down, she’d be fine. But I took her that weekend for a walk out in City Park, and then we went window shopping and stuff downtown, and she started saying things like, ‘If we lived together, we could do this all the time. We wouldn’t have to ask, we could do this all the time.’ 

“So I thought, well, that was all the proof I needed that she was just sort of… idolizing me, I guess. She had this idea that life with me would be like summer camp, and that’s why she wanted to live with me. So I said to her: no, Sofia, if you lived with me, you’d have to go to school just like you do now, and you’d have to do your homework, and you’d have to do chores around the house, and you’d still have some restrictions on how often you could call Mexico because I wouldn’t want you living all your life on the phone. And she just looked at me with this expression, her head sort of cocked like this,” Maggie tips her head a little to the side, “and looked at me like I was a total idiot, and she said, ‘I thought you said you didn’t know what to do with a kid.’ And I just… I just laughed, I guess. It made me really uncomfortable.

“So we took the train back to her neighborhood and as we were walking to her house from the stop, I looked over, and her daemon had changed shape. He’d been all kinds of things that day: a sparrow, a butterfly, a squirrel, a puppy. But he had this sort of determined look about him and he’d changed--” Maggie inhales sharply. It was, and still is, one of the most important moments of her life so far. “He’d changed into a wolverine cub,” she says. “And he was trotting alongside Eduardo, and they were talking about something, and the cub was just… trying to carry himself like Eduardo did. It was so obvious.”

Alex’s eyes blink at Maggie, a little wet, a little awed.

Maggie continues: “She said to me, ‘You get me, and they don’t, and I just want to live with you instead.’ And then I dropped her off at the house and her foster mother greeted me, she was really nice like always, but I could tell that Sofia was going out of her way to avoid having to call her anything. No names. It was heartbreaking.

“I’d left my bike parked in their driveway, and I was pulling on my helmet and Eduardo hopped up with me and he just kind of… looked at me. He’d been starting to do that… we’d been in therapy for like, I don’t know, a year by that point? Maybe a little more?”

“You were in therapy?” Alex asks, still gently, so gently.

Because, of course, Alex wouldn’t know that.

Maggie nods. “I had to… we had to fix things,” she says, tipping her chin toward Eduardo. “All the way since I was a kid, since my parents, and then -- and then since you, I’d never gone, and some things happened and I realized I just needed to get myself a little better… I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Sorted, I guess. And he just looked at me, and he said, ‘Why don’t we take her?’”

Alex’s eyebrows climb up at that. Somewhere across the park, there’s the sound of a child crying, probably having tripped and fallen in the playground. Down the walkway, an elderly woman has begun scattering stale bread for the birds, and Maggie notices faintly that Curie shares Alex’s unequivocal focus: she’s not distracted by them at all.

Maggie swallows. “I said no, of course. I said that wasn’t what we’d ever wanted. But I had to listen to him, I’d been working on listening to him, and he said, you know, just because we’ve never wanted it doesn’t mean we couldn’t do it. And I said to him -- I said, then why the hell did we let Alex and Curie go, if we’re just going to go do the thing we told them we’d never do?”

Alex’s eyes redden a little. Maggie pretends not to notice. 

“And he said, making a point to your ex you haven’t seen in more than three years is a dumb reason to do something. Or not do something.”

And Alex, thankfully, smiles. “I’ve had a hard time remembering that, too, sometimes,” she says quietly. “What changed?”

“I slept on it,” Maggie says. “For like a week. And then another week. I kept texting with Sofia, and we’d talk sometimes, and she’d bring it up over and over, that she wanted to come and live with me, and couldn’t she come and live with me. I went over a few times and took her out to play catch or go to the library, and her daemon would see us arrive and turn into something excitable, like a rabbit. And we’d go out. But on the walk back to the house he’d turn into a wolverine cub again, every time. Eduardo would like… coach him on how to hold his tail, and when to bare his fangs, and how to avoid scaring people’s pets. And this little daemon would just look at him with these big, awe-struck eyes. And I realized--” Maggie swallows through her still-tight throat and clenches both fists into Eduardo’s fur. He nuzzles into her stomach. “I realized that all I’d wanted, my whole life, was to be enough for someone. Just me. I wanted to be -- I wanted to be chosen by somebody,” she says, and she’s said that a hundred times to her therapist, to Eduardo, but somehow she feels more naked, right now, in this moment, in front of Alex, more vulnerable than she’s felt any time since she said it to her aunt, that day in Atlanta right after the breakup. 

Maggie feels her eyes filling and blinks hard against them. Eduardo leans hard into her abdomen, warm and strong. “And here was this kid,” Maggie presses on, “this girl who kept saying, whenever I’d give her half a second to say it, that she’d picked me, that she wanted to pick me. She was just -- she was  _ right there _ . Right in front of me, what I’d been looking for: someone to say that out of everyone, they wanted me the most. And I was turning her away. And I realized, suddenly, and very clearly, that I was being an idiot. Because this girl, this ten-year-old, she picked me to be her  _ family,  _ and I’d be damned if I was going to push that away. 

“So I called her parents, and they were thrilled about it, because I was Mexican and they thought I’d be a good role model for her. And I called the social worker, and she said she thought it would be pretty straightforward to get me fast-track cleared to adopt since I was, you know, decorated police. And then I called her foster parents, and they were actually pretty okay with it, because they’d been feeling like maybe they weren’t the right home for Sofia. And then I picked up Sofia and, for the first time, I brought her to my apartment.” Maggie laughs quietly. “You should have seen how hard I cleaned the whole place before I went to get her. It was like cleaning your house before a girl comes over for the first time, except worse.” She pushes her fingers through her hair and tucks it behind her ears. “So I had her over, and showed her where I lived,  _ how _ I lived, and asked her if she still wanted to come live with me. Her little daemon was in full wolverine cub mode, trailing along after Eduardo, behind us as we went around the rooms. And she -- she cried, Alex, and she hugged me, and she said that, yes, she wanted to come live with me. She didn’t even hesitate.” Maggie’s eyes are wet again; she clears them with a knuckle. 

“So you know, one thing led to another. I moved to a two-bedroom unit down the hall in the same building, and Sofia moved in, first as my foster, and then as my--” she fumbles her words a little. This is always hard to express. What is Sofia, exactly? Not her daughter; that understanding was essential from the very beginning. Her ward, technically, but that’s a terrible term. “--and then as my sort-of little sister, sort-of niece, sort-of friend… not my daughter, but, like, my  _ kid _ ,” she finishes, because ultimately, it’s true. Ultimately, it’s what works.

Alex looks at her quietly, clearly waiting to be sure that the story is over. Then she turns and stares out across the grass. There’s a couple making out on a blanket under a tree. “That’s… amazing, Maggie,” she says quietly. “And she was okay with the move to National City?”

“She was excited about it,” Maggie says. “In this new position, I’ll still be running field ops but I’ll be back-line, not front-line, so it’s lower-risk. Her parents live just south of Tijuana, so we can actually drive there in like a half-day if the border traffic isn’t bad. We’re planning to go down there in a couple weeks, just for the weekend. And -- well, she’s a smart girl but her school year last year didn’t go great, I’m sure you can imagine, so she has to repeat the fourth grade, and she’s happy that she can do that somewhere new, where none of the other kids will know and judge her for it.”

Alex nods. “That’s… a wild story.”

“Yeah,” Maggie agrees.

“I… don’t know what to say,” Alex says. “How do you like, uh, not-parenting a child?”

“It’s really, really hard,” Maggie says, with a little laugh. “Even though I warned her, I don’t think she expected me to actually have rules and give her responsibilities and things. I’m not good at defusing the tantrums when they come up, either; I don’t have the patience for it, which is something I’m going to have to work on before she’s a teenager. And she’s so girly, Alex! She’s  _ so girly _ , she’s got all this makeup and kid jewelry that her parents bought her and I don’t know what to do with three quarters of it, and she has this way of organizing it by colour and style and if I move  _ anything _ she loses her mind. And, of course, I haven’t even thought about dating, and I have no idea how I’m going to rebuild my social life.” 

Alex smiles knowingly, and Maggie shrugs, throwing back to their earlier conversation: “It’s hard to do it alone. I can see why it’s not what most people would choose. But, you know, we have fun, too. I’ve been learning how to cook some of the things my mom used to cook when I was a kid, and it doesn’t hurt the way I thought it would. Sofia makes me speak Spanish with her, and I kind of like that, too. We rented bikes last weekend and went for a ride together down the riverfront, and it was so much fun that I think we’re going to buy us bikes, once my bank account has recovered from the cost of moving. And Eduardo -- he just, he dads the  _ crap _ out of Pancho, her daemon. It makes him so happy.”

Eduardo ducks his head. “He’s a good kid,” he says defensively, and Maggie can only laugh with him.

“Pancho doesn’t spend so much time as a wolverine cub anymore, and I think that’s a good thing.” She looks down at Eduardo and pets him fondly. “A wolverine is a daemon for a person who lives with a lot of fear. I don’t want that for her.”

“You were always one of the bravest people I’ve ever known,” Alex murmurs. Maggie wonders if she meant for her voice to slip into an intimate register.

“Yeah, well, I was always an A-plus faker on that front.”

But Alex shakes her head. “That’s not what I mean, Maggie. You can’t be brave if you weren’t scared first.”

Well, okay. There’s some truth to that.

“We have spontaneous dance parties in the living room at least once a week,” Maggie presses on. “I haven’t done that since--”  _ you _ , she finishes in her head.

Yes, that should stay in her head.  “It’s just been a long time,” Maggie finishes. “And so you know… it was a hard, terrifying decision but I don’t regret it. I’m grateful for her. Even when she drives me up the wall, I’m grateful that she chose me.”

“Where is she now?” Alex asks.

“At our place, unpacking. I told her she didn’t have to, but she’s really excited about it? She loves that she gets to help decide where things go on the shelves and in the cabinets. A guy at the station has a teenage daughter who’s babysitting her, and I’m going to pay her really well because she’s probably doing way more heavy lifting than she expected to when she showed up.” She looks down at Eduardo and plays with the long strands of fur between her fingers. He looks up at her, and then over to Curie, who has settled down into a nesting position in Alex’s lap. 

They sit in the quiet for awhile.

“Does she know -- how does she feel about you being gay?” Alex asks, eventually.

“Oh, the new generation,” Maggie laughs softly. “Doesn’t care. Didn’t even blink at it. Then I told her today that I was meeting my ex-fiancée for coffee--”

“You told her that?” Alex sputters, half-laughing.

“I try to be open with her!” Maggie says, but she can’t quite hide her smile beneath her fake indignation. “I told her it was about work, because we’d be seeing each other on the job, and the little shit just started making kissy faces at me.”

“She didn’t!”

Maggie shrugs. “She’s a kid, she likes rom-coms, she thinks that every time you fall in love it has to be forever and doesn’t understand the pragmatics of relationships.”

Alex just looks at her, eyes narrowed, lips quirked, pensive. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks away. “Right.”

“Anyway,” Maggie says, nudging Eduardo off her lap, “I should probably head back to her.”

“Do you need a ride? You said you sold your bike.”

Maggie waves a hand dismissively. “It’s a fifteen minute walk.”

And Alex’s eyebrows climb. “You live here? I thought you liked living out in the Valley?”

“The Valley’s a shit school district,” Maggie says, and then laughs. “God, listen to me.” 

Alex’s smile is touched, again, with sadness. “Yeah, listen to you.” She cocks her head. “Didn’t you say you’re going car shopping this weekend? The dealerships are all out in the Valley -- how are you going to--”

“I reserved us a rental car for Saturday. It’ll be an exciting day of dealership-hopping and test-driving. Sofia keeps saying she needs to be sure I get something that doesn’t embarrass me with the ladies, but what she really means is I need to get something that doesn’t embarrass her when I drop her off at school.”

“Not about to start driving a minivan then, eh?”

“Ha! Not on your life, Danvers. Never.” She stands up and brushes the grit from the park bench off her thighs. 

Alex stands too, and Curie leaps up, taking off into the sky, sweeping broad, beautiful circles between them and the slowly-setting sun.

“It was good to see you, Danvers,” Maggie smiles. Because it was. It is. Maggie stands there, looking at Alex backlit by the sun, and realizes that, in this whole conversation since they left the café, she hasn’t thought once about how in love with Alex she still is.

Maybe, she thinks, it’s because she’s got other things in her life that are more important than being in love with Alex.

But still: looking at her now, at the way her hair looks tucked behind her ear, at the shape of her jaw, the slope of her shoulders, the falcon coasting down to perch on her shoulder: 

Maggie is still very, very much in love with Alex Danvers.

Or at least the idea of her. The impressions she has of her now, from these two hours of conversation, combined with the memories of their past together.

Somehow, though, that persistent love doesn’t feel like the prison it felt like two years ago.

“Maggie, you know, if-- if you want--” Alex fumbles. She crosses her arms nervously across her chest. “I just, it’s been, it’s so nice to see you again. And, I mean, no pressure at all, I totally get it if you say no--”

And -- is Alex about to try to ask her out? Maggie isn’t sure what she thinks of the idea.

“Alex,” she urges, “What is it?”

“I could borrow a DEO sedan,” Alex says in a rush, “on Saturday. And take you around to the dealerships. So you don’t have to rent a car.”

That… isn’t what Maggie expected Alex to offer. 

“You’re asking to meet Sofia,” Maggie says slowly. “That’s… a big deal.”

Alex nods stiffly, but urgently. “I… I know. I just... “ She swallows hard and drops her hands to her sides. Her body turns, her shoulders and hips opening toward Maggie. “Seeing you today, talking to you, hearing how well you’re doing and I just… I wonder what we could be to one another. If maybe we could be… something.”

“Something,” Maggie echoes. Eduardo narrows his eyes, and Maggie slips her fingers into her pockets. “I swear to God, Danvers, if this is about my kid--”

“It’s not,” Alex interrupts with vehemence. She presses her fingertips to her eyes. “You know, a few weeks after we broke up, I went with Kara to a wedding, and I met a woman there. And we both got drunk and ended up in bed. It was so dumb, Maggie, we didn’t even know each other’s names.”

Maggie can’t help the brief pang of jealousy. She’s only human.

“In the morning, as we were both waking up, she put her arm around me the same way you used to do, and half asleep, I didn’t even register that it was strange; I thought she was you, and everything was normal. And then I woke up all the way and realized what I’d done, that it wasn’t you, that it was someone else because you were gone and I just -- I snuck out of bed and had a complete meltdown in the bathroom. The worst I’d had since the night I watched you walk out of our home.”

“Alex--”

But Alex pushes on. “And then two days later I was the closest to dying that I’ve ever been, except maybe in the tank. I had laid eyes on my own shallow grave, literally, and I was staring down the wrong end of a rifle aimed almost point-blank at my heart, and I had no way out. And I was petrified, so much more afraid than I’d been in the tank, because at least, in the tank, I knew that Kara knew I loved her. And I knew that you knew I loved you, even if I hadn’t said it yet. I knew you knew.”

Maggie feels herself choking up. She can only nod, because yes, she knew.

“I stood there over my own grave, and -- my life didn’t flash before my eyes, Maggie. Only my regrets. I had two of them: that Kara was in trouble at that moment, and I wouldn’t be able to save her. And you, that you might not know how much you’d meant to me. How in love with you I still was. And when I got out, when I was rescued, all I could think was, I need to save Kara, and then I need to go home and fix things with Maggie.”

Oh, God. What would Maggie have given to hear this four years ago? How easily would that Maggie have fallen back into Alex?

Too easily. 

But Maggie’s eyes tear up a little now, just the same.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Maggie says quietly. “It wasn’t the right time for us. We would only have prolonged the agony.”

“I, I know,” Alex nods, “that’s why I didn’t do it, in the end. Crawl back to you, I mean.”

Maggie nods. Her fingers find each other in front of her belly, and  _ twist _ .

“But I’ve still never loved anyone like I loved you, Maggie.” Alex’s eyes lock on Maggie’s, and Maggie finds herself unable to turn away. “And I can’t help but feel like before, we were the right people at the wrong time. And I’d like to -- to try to see if maybe this is the right time for us. Maybe we could be right for each other now.”

Maggie rubs absently at the base of her left ring finger with her thumb.

It was a habit she’d taken a year to break after the end of the engagement. But here she is, doing it again.

“I’m not who I was then,” she says quietly. “I’ve changed. A lot. For the better, I think. But it’s still change.”

Alex nods, almost frantically. “I know. And -- I mean, I think I have, too. I hope I have. Grown.”

“And the stakes are higher,” Maggie adds. “Sofia’s had enough instability over the past year. I won’t put her through more if I can help it.”

“We could take it slow,” Alex says. “Car shopping, it’s not even a date. We could… get to know each other again. Maybe. And maybe it just turns out that we’re better as friends now, and, I mean, that would be cool too, right?”

But Maggie’s pretty sure she and Alex will never be friends.

Alex is looking at her now, open and longing and vulnerable, and it strikes Maggie suddenly that this is Alex doing what Maggie always told her to do: acknowledging her feelings and acting on them.

“Pick us up at ten,” Maggie says finally. “I’ll text you our address. Our first dealership appointment is at eleven, and I’m assuming traffic to the Valley sucks as much as it used to?”

Alex smiles, her shoulders dropping in relief. “Some things’ll never change.”

Maggie grins back. “Don’t I know it.”

Curie dives off of Alex’s shoulder then and dips down toward Eduardo, who sits up, again, to greet her. Her wings beat above him, waiting, until, almost shyly, he lifts a paw and extends a long claw toward her.

Satisfied, she carefully lowers herself and perches on it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so this "chapter" was approaching 10,000 words because WHAT THE FUCK ROADIE so I split it again.
> 
> Have the first of two chapters of almost 100% fluff and our girls falling back in love with each other.
> 
> That said, more than in the previous split chapters, these two chapters are very much a single one divided. I just didn't want to give you 10,000 words all at once.

Two weeks after Malverne, after the water tank, after Curie touching Maggie in affection for the first time, Maggie and Alex were lying on the sofa together. Maggie reclined into Alex’s chest, and Curie lay in Maggie’s arms, relaxed under Maggie’s fingers.

The intensity of that initial encounter had become more manageable for Alex, over time, but the feeling of Maggie touching Curie remained powerful. Alex had been flipping through their Netflix queue, but when Maggie began to stroke Curie’s back, her hand with the remote dropped to the couch cushion and she hummed, sagging contentedly.

“You know,” Alex whispered into Maggie’s ear, “peregrine falcons mate for life.”

A gentle shudder ran through Maggie’s body and her fingers hitched against Curie’s wing. She glanced at Eduardo who lay at the opposite end of the couch. He lifted his head under her gaze and squinted at her.

Something inside Maggie tugged downard, pulling at the back of her throat. She suddenly felt dry, and stiff, and sad, and without thinking she held Curie tighter into her body, like a child worried about having her teddy bear taken away.

Of course, Alex noticed.

“Hey,” she said, lifting her hands to cup Maggie’s elbows.

Maggie feared that if she opened her mouth she’d start to cry, so she just shook her head. She swallowed hard and managed to croak, “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not. Hey.” She tugged on Maggie’s elbows; urged her to sit up and twist just enough for Alex to be able to see her eyes. Curie fluttered from Maggie’s arms into her lap, nesting into her stomach. “Look, I’m sorry, I — it’s too soon, I know, I — I shouldn’t have said that.”

Maggie exhaled sharply, gathering herself. “No, no, it’s not too soon. It’s — I feel that way too, Alex, but…”

She glanced toward the other end of the sofa. Eduardo narrowed his eyes at her.

“But what?” Alex prompted.

“Something Emily said to me when we broke up. I just, I guess I hope the shapes of our daemons don’t mean that much. Because, I mean, most wolverines are loners for their whole lives. Especially the males.”

“Oh, Maggie,” Alex said gently, tugging her back into her body. She wrapped her arms tightly around Maggie’s shoulders, and Curie leaned into Maggie’s abdomen. “No, no, I — hey. You remember I told you about my old friend Vicky?”

Maggie settled back into Alex’s warmth, into the pleasant weight of Curie in her lap. “Hmm.”

“One of the things we bonded over was that her daemon was female, too. She was a robin, too, so everyone could tell just at a glance, even when she’d settled. For me, at least, most people don’t know enough about peregrine falcons to be able to tell unless they got to know me.”

Maggie had no idea where this was going, but she let the sound of Alex’s voice, her presence, soothe her anyway.

“We both took so much crap for having female daemons,” Alex said. “Other kids called us gay, or mocked us as though we were transgender and closeted or whatever. Using less-kind language, of course. That’s how we became friends: we both dealt with the same shit. And I… sometimes I think that might be why it took me so long to figure myself out. I was so intent on proving to the world that their assumptions about me were wrong. My parents used to talk to me about it, about how our daemons reflect parts of ourselves but not everything about us, and how there’s no simple way to understand how our daemons reflect who we are.”

And Maggie couldn’t help but feel annoyance bubble up, tightening her spine. Alex felt it, perhaps unconsciously, and began to rub at Maggie’s shoulders.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Danvers, but you turned out to be gay.”

“I know.” Alex laughed lightly. “But Vicky didn’t. Last I heard, she was happily married to some guy she met in college, and had a baby.”

Maggie couldn’t help but laugh drily. “Doesn’t mean she’s not gay, trust me.”

“Eduardo’s male. Does that mean you’re secretly straight?”

Oh.

“Touché.”

“Based on our daemons, you should be happiest living in the subarctic and I should be happy living almost anywhere in the world. But I have no desire to leave National City, maybe ever. And you hate the cold.”

Maggie thought of snowbanks and dark nights in February.

“I think Curie is a female falcon because I’m gay, and because she lets me fly with Kara and that’s important to me, and because I know I can be very, very aggressive in protecting the people I love and the causes I value. And, yeah, because I’ve always thought that if I could… if I could figure out how to fall for someone, I’d never know how to let them go. And I think you’re a wolverine because you’re a survivor, because you can be fierce and terrifying but also soft and warm and strong, and because you’re basically impossible to intimidate.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Maggie murmured. “I just fake it well.”

Maggie felt Alex shrug. “Is there any difference when you stand down the bad guys either way?”

There was no good answer to that.

Eduardo huffed at her and dropped his chin down to his paws again. “Listen to you,” he said. “She said she wants you forever, and you’re making her fucking _justify_ it to you.”

But _forever_ was long, so long, and Alex was warm, and caring, and beautiful, and her daemon settled into Maggie’s body as though it were an extension of Alex’s own.

Maggie wanted this forever. With every fiber of her being, she wanted this forever.

But that didn’t mean she thought it would happen.

 

—

 

Here’s what will happen next:

Maggie will have a Very Serious Conversation with Sofia about how Alex will be joining them for their car-shopping, and how this does not mean that she and Alex are romantically involved again, and how if Sofia jokes about how Maggie and Alex should kiss, it will probably make everyone very uncomfortable.

Maggie will also make clear that Sofia should feel free to form her own opinions about Alex, separate from what she knows about Alex’s history with Maggie.

Maggie will also make clear that nothing, and nobody, has the potential to jeopardize Sofia’s life and home with Maggie. That they, together, come first, always.

Sofia will listen carefully, wearing the kind of Very Serious Face that only a ten-year-old can pull off. She will think of this as a kind of pact, a kind of secret, to be held to the utmost importance between them.

When Alex picks them up in a black DEO Charger, Sofia will meet her with a shy reservation that’s out of character for her. Maggie will wonder if, perhaps, their Very Serious Conversation was overkill, and now Sofia is nervous.

But then Maggie will remember that Alex is a bit magical. She’ll greet Sofia with a smile and a handshake, and get Disney Radio playing in the car, and ask Sofia questions about her hobbies

(“I dunno… I like drawing.” “Cool! Do you draw with plain pencils, or colored pencils, or what?” “Whatever. Colored pencils I guess. I like to draw animals.” “Cool! I’d love to see some of your stuff sometime!")

and her room

(“Do you like it?” “Yeah. It’s smaller than my old room, but it has a reading nook and Maggie says I can get a bunk bed with a desk under it.” “Nice! You’ll probably have to put it together, though. What do you think about that?” “That’s okay. I like building things!” “Yeah? Me too!” Maggie will intercede: “Great, Danvers, consider yourself recruited. I’ll supervise.”)

and her favorite music

(“What’s your favorite band?” “I like Next In Line.” “No way! Who’s your favorite? Is it Sam?” Maggie will see Sofia grimace in the rear-view. “No! I like Ricky.” “Ooh, the bad boy, eh? Tall, dark, and handsome. He’s my sister Kara’s favorite, too. Hey, Maggie —“ she’ll fish in her jacket pocket, pull out her phone, hand it to Maggie in the passenger seat — “Why don’t you pull up some Next In Line on Spotify? It’s bluetooth synced.” Maggie will, dutifully, pull up Sofia’s favorite boy band on Alex’s phone. She’ll see Sofia begin to bop her head, and Alex will, too. And then the chorus will kick in, and Alex will begin to sing along, which will make Sofia grin and start to sing, too. And Maggie will find herself humming self-consciously while Alex and Sofia belt out the lyrics, windows down in the slow-moving freeway traffic.)

(“How did you know all those lyrics?” Maggie will ask Alex, later. Alex will cock an eyebrow at her. “I know it’s been awhile, but you do remember my sister’s love for boy bands, don’t you?”)

They will test drive cars. Sofia will scowl at the two-year-old Mazda hatchback. Maggie will wrinkle her nose at the three-year-old Honda Fit. Out of a sense of environmental obligation, Maggie will test a Prius, and will be somewhat relieved to learn that she hates the way it drives.

Maggie will refuse on principle to even step into the Subaru dealership, no matter the number of good things Alex has read about the Outback hybrid.

She’ll hate the Prius but she’ll see that the Toyota dealership is selling a 2017 Jeep Wrangler, silver, traded in by someone who decided they wanted something without the lights and whistles of a removable hardtop and doors. It’s a little high-mileage for its age, and the removable hard top is not the original — the first owners backed into theirs in their garage, and had to replace it. But the part is factory-original. In combination, that brings it into Maggie’s price range.

“Oh, no,” Alex will say.

“Oh, yes,” Maggie will retort.

She’ll drive it and love it.

“What do you think, Sof?” she’ll ask. “You can take the roof off, like a convertible.”

Sofia’s grin will split her face at that.

“Maggie,” Alex will admonish, “seriously? A convertible with removable doors as your kid-friendly ride? Is this really better than just throwing her on the back of your bike?”

Maggie will cock an eyebrow at her. “The input you get into this decision, or into my child-rearing in general, is zero, unless I ask you for it.”

“Hey,” Eduardo will mutter, “that might have been a little harsh.”

Alex, chastized, will look down and mumble an apology. And Maggie will take pity on her. “The roof will be on most of the time, and I won’t take the doors off if she’s with me. Except maybe for beach trips.”

“Beach trips?” Sofia will pipe up. Because of course, she doesn’t really understand the geography of where they are.

“Yeah, kid, the beach is like a half-hour drive from our place. Less, if the traffic’s good.”

“Cool!” Sofia will exclaim. “Can I learn to surf?”

Maggie will quirk her lips at the kid and then look over at Alex, whose eyes are wide and happy. “I don’t know how, Sof, but I know someone who does…”

Sofia will understand, and turn bright eyes on Alex. “Could I learn? Could you teach me?”

Alex will hold questioning eyes on Maggie until Maggie nods.

“Well, since you’re going to be driving the ultimate surfer-mobile, it only seems fair, huh?”

Pancho will turn into a sparrow and loop around Curie, and together, the two birds will take to the air, Eduardo craning his neck and watching.

An hour later, after a little negotiation (wherein Alex will make herself very helpful), Maggie will step back out onto the lot holding the keys to the Jeep.

Alex will follow Maggie to the door of the new car, the keys to her DEO car dangling from her fingers. “This was… nice, right?” she’ll ask. “This was good?”

“Yeah, Danvers, this was really nice,” Maggie will smile.

“You wanna come over?” Sofia will pipe up. “Maggie said we can order Chinese food for dinner!”

Alex will blink at Sofia and smile nervously at her. She’ll seek answers in Maggie’s eyes.

And this will have been a lovely day. Alex will have been great company. So Maggie will smile and say, “Yeah, Danvers, we can even get those deep-fried wontons you like so much. Meet us back at our building?”

Alex’s grin will split her face. “Okay.”

Maggie will set up the bluetooth sync in the Jeep before they start their drive, and she’ll pull up Next In Line on Spotify, and they’ll listen to it for the whole (mercifully lower-traffic and therefore shorter) drive home.

Alex will not comment on how small their apartment is. A cop’s salary is still a cop’s salary, after all, and Maggie can’t afford as much here, in this more central location, as she could on the outskirts of town. Alex and Maggie will bicker over who will cover the Chinese food bill, but Maggie will win, because Alex paid for the gas for their drive today.

Sofia will show Alex some of her drawings, and Alex’s investment will be honest.

It won’t be until they finish dinner, when Sofia says she’s going to go call her parents and tell them about the new car and the surfing lessons, that Alex and Maggie will really be able to talk to one another without Sofia mediating. They’ll clear the table, and Alex will load the dishwasher while Maggie puts the leftovers into tupperware.

“She’s a great kid,” Alex will say, and Maggie will nod, a surge of pride running through her.

“You look… you seem really great, the two of you.”

Maggie will laugh. “Like any relationship, it’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it.”

Eduardo and Curie will be sitting near them. Curie will be perched on Eduardo’s outstretched claw.

“I didn’t mean to overstep earlier,” Alex will say. “I like the car.”

“I know,” Maggie will answer. “I’m a little… touchy, still, I guess. About how to balance myself, the person I am, with what I know is best for her. I have no instinct for this.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Alex will say.

“Alex—“

“No, I don’t mean — I don’t mean to dismiss the, like, _huge_ shift in your sense of self that you’ve needed to make in order to live like you’re living,” Alex will say quickly, anticipating — correctly — what Maggie’s thinking. “I just mean, I think you are trusting your instincts. You seem to be putting a lot of work into trusting your instincts. And it’s turning out well for you, which, just… I’m impressed, I guess. I’ve always admired you, but this just takes it up another level.”

Maggie will smile at Alex. “Thanks, Danvers.”

They’ll stand still together by the sink, a strange tension keeping them from moving closer together or shifting further apart. Eduardo and Curie sit silently. The only sound will be Sofia’s voice, chattering away in Spanish to her mother.

Maggie will break the tension, eventually. “I promise I won’t make dumb decisions about driving a kid around in a four-by-four with no roof or doors,” she’ll say, with a smile.

Alex will lurch, just a little, like a breath gasped out after being held. And she’ll smile back.

A few days later, Alex will invite Maggie for drinks at Dollywood with the group, which hasn’t changed much, she says. Mon-el is around more, and, strangely, Lena Luthor is there often. But Kara, Winn, James, sometimes J’onn: that’s still the core.

Maggie will swallow her nerves, book a babysitter, and go.

She’ll be apprehensive about seeing James again, after she let his friendship go. But James is kind, and principled, and empathetic, and understanding, and proud: he meets her halfway to the door and wraps her in a bear hug. The lioness drops her head and bumps Eduardo’s affectionately.

“Something’s been missing since you left,” he’ll say, throwing an arm over her shoulders. “Having you back feels like making the circle whole again.”

Maggie will blush and look down, and throw her arm around his waist just the same.

The bar will have undergone some security improvements and renovations, and the ancient pool table will have been replaced. They’ll have installed a skee-ball chute in one corner, too, so its sound will have changed, krrrr-thunk of the balls being thrown and petty voices of aliens bickering over whether the telekinetic species have cheated, but it’ll still smell like stale beer and fermentation.

The smell will snap her back to her first kiss with Alex, when Maggie had rejected her.

Kara will hug her warmly, and Winn will offer her a fist-bump and a high five, and J’onn will offer her his typical stoic nod. Mon-el, whom she’d known little and liked less, will offer her a polite handshake, which she’ll accept.

She’ll play a few games of pool with Alex and discover that they’re more evenly matched than they used to be. (Kate was really into playing pool.) They’ll have traded bets on bar tabs, on cases of ammo, on whether Maggie will let Alex teach her to surf when Alex teaches Sofia.

“Eduardo doesn’t swim,” Maggie will insist.

“Put him in a lifejacket and put him on your board!” Alex will retort, grinning.

“Not gonna happen,” Eduardo will snark. He’ll be standing on his hind legs, his front paws on the edge of the pool table, Curie standing on his head. She’ll indicate her indignation by bending down and pecking him once, right between the eyes. He’ll bat at her half-heartedly with his paw.

Alex will stride over to Maggie and stand just a little too close. “How about, if I win the next game, you have to let me take you for dinner this weekend.” Her bravado falters. “On—on a date.”

Maggie will quirk an eyebrow at her. “You’re on.”

Maggie will win the game handily, probably because Alex is so nervous, Maggie can see her cue shake when she lines up her shots.

When Maggie has cleared her solids, Alex will scratch on her second-to-last stripe, letting Maggie line up an easy shot to clear the eight-ball.

Alex’s face will fall. She’ll push her hair out of her face, flustered, and fidget with her cue. “Well. Okay then.” She’ll laugh uncomfortably. “Uh. Double or nothing?”

Maggie will smile and shake her head. She’ll walk around the table to Alex, steady the pool cue where Alex is playing with it, and say, “Not tonight. I have to let the babysitter go home.”

Alex will nod. She’ll shift nervously from foot to foot. “Of course.”

“But you could take me on a date anyway,” Maggie will say quietly. “Say, Saturday?”

And Alex’s smile will light up the room. Curie will leap up and fly a lazy circle around the two of them.

The date will be wonderful. They’ll talk about their cases, about the DEO, about Maggie’s reintegration into the NCPD, about how the old white men are dealing with having to report to a young, queer, brown woman.

“Better than they did in Gotham,” Maggie will shrug.

They’ll walk from the restaurant to a cocktail bar, side by side, carefully not touching, and continue their conversation late into the night.

They’ll share a cab home. They’ll go to Maggie’s first, and Alex will alleviate any awkwardness about how the night should end by drawing Maggie into a warm hug.

“This was so nice,” she’ll say. “Can we do it again?”

Maggie will smile into Alex’s hair, and breathe “Yeah” into her ear.

They’ll go for a lunch date a few days later. And then Alex will come over for dinner with Maggie and Sofia. Empanadas.

After Sofia goes to bed, Alex and Maggie will sit in the living room and watch a thriller on Netflix. Maggie will grab Alex’s forearm at a random jump-scare. When the moment passes, they’ll both take stock of what happened, of this point of contact between them. Maggie won’t move. Tentatively, Alex will shift her arm so that Maggie’s hand slides into hers.

They’ll smile.

Maggie will settle into Alex’s shoulder.

(Their daemons will have been cuddled together, beside them on the couch, since they first sat down.)

An hour later, at the front door, Alex will shrug back into her jacket. Maggie will fight the urge to cross her arms over her stomach, nervously, and will instead wedge her fingers into her pockets.

“Danvers—“

“Maggie—“

They’ll both laugh.

“Go ahead,” Maggie will say.

But Alex won’t say anything.

She’ll step closer to Maggie, her posture open, her hands down at her sides, fingers fidgeting nervously. Her eyes will skip from Maggie’s eyes to her lips and back again.

She won’t need to use words to make her desire any more clear.

And so Maggie will step closer to her, their hips almost touching, and Alex will slide her hands up Maggie’s arms to cradle her jaw, and Maggie will raise her hands to cup Alex’s elbows, and they will kiss slowly, tenderly. Alex’s lips on Maggie’s will be gentle, tentative, moving carefully, like Maggie is something precious and fragile.

And Maggie will gasp in a breath, and raise her hands to the back of Alex’s neck, and draw in everything of her that she can reach while willing her knees not to give out. Because kissing Alex Danvers will feel as perfect, as priceless, as otherworldly as she remembers.

They’ll cut it off before it gets out of hand, but they’ll smile, and giggle, and rest their foreheads together.

“I can’t believe I gave that up,” Alex will breathe.

Maggie will shrug. “We’re here now,” she’ll say.  

That weekend, Maggie and Sofia will pick up Alex from her place. She’ll be waiting for them on the curb in front of her building, holding a surfboard and a length of rope. It’s pretty easy to tie the board to the top of the Jeep.

“Okay,” Alex will say, as she climbs into the front seat and looks up, around the board, at the clear California sky, “I admit it: this is pretty great.”

As they drive on slower city streets, Curie will leap up and coast along on the drafts above them. Pancho will be an excited rabbit, dashing back and forth in the back seat, Eduardo sitting stoically beside Sofia, watching him.

Sofia will want to crash immediately into the water, but Alex will insist that they swing by the rental shop for a life jacket because even if Sofia’s a great swimmer, any wave big enough to surf is big enough to be dangerous. And they’ll need a board appropriate to her size.

Maggie will try not to stare at Alex’s long legs in her swimsuit. Will try not to wonder what Alex’s abs look like right now, under that rashguard.

They’ll spend hours in the ocean, Pancho hopping around as a salmon and a dolphin and a ray, and occasionally turning into a gull and flying up to ride the air currents with Curie. Maggie will sit on the beach, alternately reading a novel and watching them. Eduardo will be flopped beside her on their beach towel, his belly bared to the warm midday sun.

By the time the tide changes, and the waves with it, Sofia will have mastered riding the waves on her knees, and will have managed to get up onto her feet once or twice and hold it for a few seconds before falling.

Sofia and Alex will come running up onto the beach, their boards under their arms, giddy and wet and laughing and salty. Maggie will meet them with a beach towel in each hand.

“What do you say?” She’ll ask, as Sofia tugs on a t-shirt and Alex wraps her towel around her waist, “Wanna take a walk up to the stand for some fried food?”

“Yeah!” Sofia will exclaim with all the giddiness of her age.

Sofia will get chicken fingers, Alex will get fish n’ chips, Maggie will get a veggie burger.

“Missed these,” Maggie will say, a few bites in. “Couldn’t get a decent black bean burger anywhere in Gotham.”

The day will make Alex into Sofia’s new favorite person. She won’t stop talking about her.

Maggie can’t say  that she minds.

Maggie will miss Alex when she and Sofia drive down to Tijuana. It’ll be a beautiful, sunny day, and they’ll take the roof (but not the doors) off the Wrangler. They’ll get Five Guys drive-through before getting into the long line at the border crossing. Maggie will let Sofia get into the front seat just while they eat, the car moving forward inches at a time in the sluggish border queue.

Maggie will turn down the Barenaked Ladies playing on the radio (“We’ll go back to Next In Line as soon as we cross the border, kid, deal?” “Okay, fine, deal.”)

“Sofia,” Maggie will say, in her Serious Voice.

And Sofia will look up from her fries, Serious Face on. “Yeah?”

“What would you think if I started dating Alex?”

Sofia’s eyes will go wide, and start sparkling, and she’ll nod frantically until she swallows her bite. With all the enthusiasm of her ten years, she’ll say, “You should date, and then she can be your girlfriend, and then you can get married and we can all live together and we can go surfing every weekend!”

Maggie will adjust her sunglasses and smile. “Slow down, slugger. All it means right now is that she and I will spend a little more time together, and sometimes Kristin will come stay with you on Friday or Saturday evenings so she and I can have, you know, grown-up time.”

Sofia will cock an eyebrow at her as if to say: do you _really_ think I don’t know what “grown-up time” means?

They’ll have a great time visiting Sofia’s parents. Maggie will enjoy getting to know them as people in their own right. They’ll be doing okay: Sofia’s mother will be working in a call center and her father will be working at a tourist resort. They’ll speak Spanish for the whole weekend, and Maggie will find it exhausting for the first day but comfortable by the time they leave at the end of the third.

Sofia will cry when they leave. So will Sofia’s mother, and it will be very clear to Maggie that her father is not crying only because he’s made the decision not to: he’ll be the strong one, for his wife and daughter.

“Thank you,” he’ll say to Maggie, “for taking such good care of our little girl. We couldn’t be happier that she’s with you.”

Maggie will shrug. “She takes care of me, too.”

The school year will be about to start again, but they make tentative plans to drive down again on Thanksgiving weekend.

The drive home to National City will be long; the border traffic will be exhausting and gruesome. Maggie will explain, in the car, that if the border control agent asks, Sofia should say that Maggie is her mother, because legally she is, and any other answer might cause problems. Sofia, sad and longing for the mother they left in Tijuana, will give a shrug and a grunt and a sniff, the only indication that she heard Maggie at all, while staring dejectedly out the window.

Border control will suck. The agent will ask why Maggie and Sofia have different last names. Maggie will explain that Sofia is adopted and has kept her biological family’s last name.

“Does she have a father?”

“I adopted her as a single parent.”

She’ll have brought copies of the adoption paperwork just in case, and will try not to growl in frustration while she waits for them to call Gotham and make sure everything is in order, and then while they shine flashlights into the back seat, into Sofia’s eyes, waking her from where she had dozed off.

The whole ordeal will have taken half an hour, not including the wait time, and by the time they pull into the US, Maggie will be tired and irritable and desperate for her couch and a drink.

They’ll drive through Five Guys again. Maggie will text Alex while she waits, saying that they’re safely back in the country, despite border control’s best efforts to keep them out.

They’ll park under their building and take the elevator up, Sofia sulking and dragging her feet the whole way, only to find find Alex waiting, sitting with her back against the door to Maggie and Sofia’s apartment, reading something on an ipad and absently stroking Curie’s back.

Beside her there will be a large pizza, a six-pack, and a bottle of Sofia’s favorite grape juice.

Sofia will crack the first inkling of a smile for the first time since her mother buckled her, into the back seat of the Jeep.  

Maggie will be so happy to see Alex that she’ll want to cry.

Sofia will drop her bag in the entryway and kick off her shoes and head to the bathroom.

Maggie will take advantage of the moment of privacy to kiss Alex with all the energy of the day’s pent-up exhaustion and frustration.

“Wow,” Alex will breathe, her hands squeezing at Maggie’s shoulders.

They’ll warm the pizza in the oven and Maggie will crack open a beer for each of the adults and pour a glass of grape juice for Sofia. Sofia will chatter at Alex, the kind of stream-of-conscious rambling of the truly exhausted, telling her all about her parents’ new house and how cool it is to go to Mexico where people speak Spanish everywhere, all the time.

“You should come with us next time, if you’re going to be Maggie’s girlfriend, Alex,” Sofia will say matter-of-factly.

Alex will choke on her pizza and Maggie will fight to keep from spitting her mouthful of beer all over the table.

Alex will recover first. “We’ll see,” she’ll say, diplomatically.

After pizza, Maggie will send Sofia off to brush her teeth and get ready for bed.

“But I want to hang out with Alex,” she’ll insist.

“It’s way past your bedtime,” Maggie will say, “and you’ll see Alex again soon.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. Maybe.”

While Maggie gets Sofia tucked in, Alex will open them each another beer, and go to wait for Maggie on the sofa.

When Maggie sits down next to her, she won’t bother with the beer: she’ll reach over and pull Alex into a kiss, starting soft and careful like that last kiss by the door, but quickly turning hotter, more passionate; she’ll throw a leg over Alex’s lap, and Alex will tug her close with a hand on her ass and the other on the back of her neck. Alex will make soft, happy sounds into Maggie’s mouth, and Maggie will drive her fingers into Alex’s soft hair and mutter “God, I missed you,” into her mouth.

She won’t clarify whether she’s talking about the weekend, or she’s talking about the past four years.

(They’ll both understand that it’s both.)

Breathlessly, they’ll separate before things become too heated for the living room of an apartment where there’s a ten-year-old sleeping down the hall.

“I don’t want it to be like this anyway,” Alex will murmur. “I want to go out with you again, first. Somewhere nice. Do something really special.”

Maggie settles Alex into her side, under her arm, and hums her agreement.

They sit and watch something mindless on Netflix, sipping at their beers, until Alex says she has to go home or she’s going to fall asleep on the couch.

“Special” will happen the following weekend. Alex will pick Maggie up, and Maggie won’t be able to help but love the feeling of riding a bike again, even if it’s the back of Alex’s. She’ll wrap her arms tightly around Alex’s waist -- perhaps more tightly than is strictly necessary -- and Eduardo will hop up behind her. She’l lock her knees in against Alex’s thighs and lean with her in to the bends of the roads and bend into the speed of the freeway until Alex pulls up in front of a restaurant Maggie doesn’t know in a newly-gentrified neighborhood not far from downtown.

“It’s vegetarian,” Alex will say. “I thought you’d like to try it.”

The food is incredible. They’ll talk quietly over dinner, about work and politics and movies. While they’re waiting for their entrees, their fingers will find each other on the tabletop, tangling together.

Afterward, they’ll take the long way back to Maggie’s place, enjoying the intimacy and the thrill of the ride.

Back in the apartment, Maggie will pay the babysitter, who will tell them that Sofia’s been asleep for over an hour. She’ll confirm that she drove herself here and doesn’t need a ride home.

Maggie will close the door and lock it, and then turn to look at Alex, who is hovering in the middle of the living room, thumbs hooked into her belt loops.

They’ll skip the charade of pouring drinks.

Maggie will reach a hand out for Alex and lead her into the bedroom.

Alex was always a breathtaking lover. Even when she’d been new to it, when Maggie had been coaxing her through the self-consciousness and vulnerability that came from discovering well into adulthood that she could, in fact, experience the extremes of pleasure in the hands of another person, she’d compensated with attention and observation and thoughtful trial and error and a scientific attention to detail. But they will bring to this new encounter years of experiences with other women, and Alex will still be focused and observant and precise but she’ll also be more confident, more assertive, more adventurous.

She used to enjoy being goal-oriented; she was gratified by her ability to bring Maggie to orgasm, and that meant it wasn’t unusual for Maggie to come two, three, sometimes even four times in a passionate night, and Maggie was certainly never going to complain about _that_.

But this time, their second first time together, Alex will have learned to slow down, will have learned to take greater pleasure in the journey. She’ll remember Maggie’s sensitive places, just as Maggie will remember Alex’s, and she’ll take her slow, reverential time bringing Maggie to gasping climax. And Maggie will feel loved, and treasured, and safe under Alex’s hands. And then Maggie will lift Alex above her and touch her with care everywhere, will find every new scar and kiss it, will wrap both arms around Alex and tug their bodies as close as they can physically manage, will slip her fingers inside her and feel Alex mute her gasp into the muscle of Maggie’s shoulder, will move strong and gentle against her, inside her, and when Alex will finally lift her head from Maggie’s shoulder, when her hips will have shuddered out the last of their tension, she’ll meet Maggie’s gaze with bright, glistening eyes.

“I had this,” Alex will whisper, “And I walked away from it. And nothing ever came close again.”

Maggie, her fingers still seated deep, will say, “But we’re here now.”

At the foot of the bed, Eduardo will have Curie cradled to him, and she’ll have her wing half-spread over his shoulder.

Sofia will be excited to see Alex still there in the morning, wearing Maggie’s boxers and an oversized t-shirt, pulling down the pancake mix from the cabinet while Maggie makes coffee. But then her nose will wrinkle, her ten-year-old self putting together the pieces of what must have happened last night for Alex to have slept over.

“Eww,” she’ll say, matter-of-factly.

“Good morning to you too,” Alex will snark back, even as she slips an arm around Maggie and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Keep doing that and I make no guarantees I won’t lose count of my coffee scoops and then we’re both in for a surprise,” Maggie will say, and Alex will chuckle against her hair.

“Does this mean you’re girlfriends now?” Sofia will ask, a hopeful edge to her tone shading out her disgust and the prospect of -- gasp -- _sex_.

Alex will defer to Maggie to answer that question.

“Mind yer own business, kid,” is what Maggie will retort, good-naturedly. “I bet Alex could use your help mixing the pancake batter, though.”

Alex will stay the night three more times that week.

The evening of the second, Maggie will raise the issue they waited too long to discuss last time.

“I love Sofia,” she’ll say to Alex, “she’s wonderful. But it doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to want another kid.”

“Necessarily,” Alex will echo, softly. “That doesn’t sound like the hard no you had last time.”

“I’m trying not to think in absolutes,” Maggie will defer. “If you know for sure you’re going to want to have another kid -- to have a kid at all -- if you know for sure that you’ll need more in your life than me and Sofia, you need to be clear about that now. Because I can’t guarantee I’ll be on board for that, which means we should take a step back.”

“You’d be open to a conversation, though?” Alex asks.

“I might be,” Maggie says, “but even if I am, I can’t promise what the outcome of that conversation would be. You need to think about whether we, Sofia and me, whether we can be enough. Whether raising Sofia with me, if we get to that point, will satisfy the part of you that has always wanted to be a mother.”

Maggie will swallow.

“She’ll never call you ‘mom,’” she’ll continue. “She’ll always hold you up against the imaginary, untouchable ideal that is her biological mother, and you’ll never match up.”

“But she’ll still need me. Us,” Alex will say. “There will still be parent-teacher conferences, and camping trips, and homework help, and preteen birthday parties, and dealing with first periods and first boyfriends or girlfriends and driver’s ed in your ridiculous Jeep.”

Maggie will shrug, and smile, and nod. “Yeah, Danvers. There’ll be all those things too.”

“She’ll still need care when she’s sick, and hugs when she’s sad. She might still look up to me.”

And Maggie will laugh a little. “She already looks up to you, Danvers. It’s a little gross.”

Alex will lean forward and cradle Maggie’s jaw. “I’ll want to talk about the possibility of another kid,” she’ll say, “but you, and she, are all that I need to be happy.”

That will be the conversation that tips the scales: they’re girlfriends.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who wants 5000+ more words of sickly-sweet tooth-rotting fluff?
> 
> Seriously, this is the fluffiest stuff I've ever written.

Sofia will love Maggie and Alex’s new, official relationship.

“We have to be careful,” Maggie will say to Alex. “If this doesn’t work out this time, again, there’s just… so much more to go wrong.”

“I know,” Alex will agree, “And I guess all I can promise is that if it does, I can stay in her life if she wants. If you want.”

Maggie isn’t sure if that’s what she’d want, or what Sofia would want, or if that’s what would help. But it helps to know that they’re both thinking about it. That they know what’s at stake.

They’ll have their second first fight a month later, over Mon-El, of all things. Alex will arrange a night at a cabin out in the mountains for the two of them, and Kara will offer to stay with Sofia.

“Will Mon-El be there with her?” Maggie will ask.

Alex will shrug. “Probably.”

“Then no. Absolutely not.”

“What--why?”

“I don’t want a ten-year-old girl spending any time with him, or with them together, without me there to run damage control. I _refuse_ to let that kid grow up with the impression that _anything_ about the way that dickbag treats your sister is an acceptable way for a man to treat a woman.”

“Maggie,” Alex will say, “he’s changed. He’s really gotten better.”

“Has he? Or does he just know how to behave when you’re around?”

“Kara says he’s better.”

“Kara’s in love with him, for reasons that will never cease to puzzle the hell out of me, so I don’t expect her to notice when he talks over her for the fourteenth time in a conversation, or when she asks him for something and he does the exact opposite. She’s not a good judge.”

The fight happen over lunch and it will end with Alex storming off to the DEO, and Maggie fuming her way back into the NCPD bullpen.

(Curie and Eduardo will linger a bit longer, sighing at one another in disappointment, before following their respective humans.)

Maggie will feel badly about it later. Alex had been trying to arrange something nice for the two of them, after all. So she’ll make a few phone calls, beg James to pick up Sofia from her after-school program at the Boys & Girls Club (it doesn’t take much begging), pick up some flowers, and go to Alex’s.

She’ll tell Alex that Winn has agreed to stay with Sofia for the weekend, so they can take their trip. And she promises that she’ll give Mon-El a chance to redeem himself in her eyes -- with the caveat that the onus will be on him to earn her respect, and not on her to give it.

The make-up sex will accidentally happen on Alex’s dining table.

Vigorously. A chair will fall over and an empty coffee cup, left on the table from the morning, will be swept to the ground.

It’ll be really, really hot.

Their night in the mountain cabin will be perfect, too. They’ll bundle against the evening chill and sit in chaises on the deck, Alex pointing out all the constellations. It’ll be warm in the house but they’ll build a fire in the fireplace anyway (“Because we’re in a cabin, Sawyer!”) and spend the night on the thick rug in front of it, wearing nothing but each other and a shared quilt, like they’re in a cheesy romance novel. Curie and Eduardo will cuddle together closer to the warmth and the flames.

In the morning, it will happen.

Maggie will wake up sore: her few hours of sleep will have been spent flat on her back on the floor, her stiff spine creating pressure points at the base of her back and neck, and Alex will have used the crook of her shoulder as a pillow, so her arm will be asleep.

And despite this, she’ll feel the most comfortable she can ever remember feeling. She’ll feel like she never wants to move again; like she’ll never be more comfortable than she feels in this precise moment.

It’ll be a little strange. She’ll have had romantic mornings of cuddling with Alex before, on her much more comfortable memory foam mattress, and yet she won’t have felt this perfect, this comfortable, this settled, this content.

Even without any feeling in her left arm.

And then Alex will begin to shift a little, waking. She’ll tip her head forward to drop a kiss on the muscle near her lips, above Maggie’s breast, and that simple shift will send a thrill of… _something_ through Maggie’s body that just… won’t make any sense.

Like, Maggie will be pretty sure her body has had all the sex it can take for a day or two, but even then, this feeling, this frisson, isn’t quite sexual.

She’ll never have felt anything like it.

Is this what it means to be in love, she’ll wonder? Perhaps all that time she’d thought herself in love with Alex before, it had really just been a softer prelude to… _this_ feeling?

But no: she shouldn’t doubt herself like that.

She’ll know she’d been in love with Alex four years earlier, just as she’s in love with Alex in this moment.

But the Alex will shift again, half sitting up, eyes wide. She’ll reach down and behind her and--

Maggie will feel a burst of pure joy, of euphoria so extreme it feels chemical, like a drug.

“Maggie,” Alex will breathe, suddenly wide awake, her arm still stretched awkwardly down and behind her. That arm will move again, and Maggie will feel her breath catch in her lungs, her body caught in a paroxysm of something that seems to make every part of her tighten in ecstasy.

“Oh, Maggie,” Alex will breathe again, shifting carefully so that Maggie can free the arm Alex had used as a pillow, and Alex will prod her to lift up enough to accept Alex’s arm under her head and neck--

And in sitting up, in fighting her way up onto her elbows, she’ll see it:

Eduardo, curled up and snuggled into the back of Alex’s knees, with a foreleg draped over Curie.

He’ll lift his head to look at her. “What? She’s warm.” Then he’ll look at Alex. “Could you get that spot on the back of my neck you just got? I can’t get it myself.”

Alex, her eyes wide and awe-struck, will trail gentle fingers down the back of Eduardo’s neck and Maggie will feel it like a caress on the flesh of her own heart, jolting it into action, but not in panic or nausea: it’s as though her heart is expanding to hold more blood, more warmth, infused with more love.

Her body, for lack of anything better to do, will arch. Alex will hold her tight with one arm.

Eduardo will shuffle up closer to Alex’s hand, rolling onto his back and stretching to offer the soft fur of his stomach, and when Alex gently scratches him there a sound will tear itself from Maggie’s throat. She’ll roll into Alex’s side and remember the feeling of Alex clawing at her shoulder; she’ll understand that, now, as she fumbles up to grip at the curve of Alex’s neck into her shoulder, as she drops her chin and pants into the side of Alex’s chest.

“Maggie,” Alex will whisper, her quiet voice full of awe, as Maggie hooks her leg over Alex’s, under the blanket. “Maggie.”

And Maggie will feel, somehow, both the most present she has ever felt in her life, and like she’s floating outside and above herself. She’ll feel like every breath is drawing pure light into her lungs. She’ll feel like the places where she touches Alex are not borders but seams, fixing them together; sites where their bodies are becoming a single body, or resolving into the single body they have, perhaps, always been. But won’t be like sex, it’s not like the way bodies join in sex. It will be like holding hands for the first time, or discovering that you both happened to be at the same concert, three rows apart from one another, five years before you met.

It’ll be like like discovering something new only to realize it’s always been there, just outside your peripheral vision, waiting to be resolved.

Alex will wrap her arm tighter around Maggie’s shoulders, then slide her hand up into Maggie’s hair and scratch at her scalp as she scratches at the skin under Eduardo’s fur, and Maggie will groan, because this feeling, this perfection, this unity will have to find voice, have to be expressed somehow so that her body doesn’t cave in on itself in the euphoria of this moment.

“He’s so soft,” Alex will murmur.

“Please,” Maggie will whisper, “please, please,” because it’s the only word she’ll be able to remember.

They’ll stay like that for ten minutes, fifteen. Maggie will start crying quietly, ecstatically, into Alex’s skin, and Alex will duck her chin to kiss Maggie’s forehead and nose and cheeks, her eyes bright with wonder and affection.

“Don’t let go,” Maggie will gasp, and Alex will wonder if she even notices that she’s saying it.

“Never,” Alex will murmur, crushing their bodies together with all of her strength, “Never, never. Never again. Never.”

Alex will eventually stop, drawing her hand away from Eduardo, because Maggie will be breathing erratically and she’ll want to hold her tighter, hold her closer, and Maggie will gasp in her first full breath in minutes as Alex pulls her on top of her body, wraps her arms fully around Maggie’s back, clings to her as she recovers.

“Maggie,” Alex will breathe. “My Maggie.”

“My Alex,” Maggie will whisper back.

Eduardo will shuffle up and lie down with a happy huff, pressed against the skins of both of their sides, and Curie will flutter over and lie down on top of him, her wing nested against Maggie’s ribs. Alex will gasp at that, and she’ll find a way to draw Maggie in tighter still.

“It’s you,” Alex will whisper, like a rediscovery. “Oh, it’s _you_.”

By the time they’re approaching their one-year anniversary of new-coupledom, Alex will have all but moved in with Maggie and Sofia. All her favorite clothing will live in Maggie’s closet. She’ll know the combination to Maggie’s gun safe and store a sidearm there. She’ll have her own profile on Maggie and Sofia’s Netflix account.

She’ll have her own key.

Their morning routines will flow together like a dance. Three people showered, three people dressed, Sofia fed breakfast and packed lunch and sent off on the school bus, Maggie and Alex caffeinated and fed and packed lunch (on a good day) and off to their respective workplaces in their respective vehicles.

There will be texts throughout the day, every day, about groceries and dinner plans and making sure Sofia’s picked up from her after-school program.

Alex will be on Sofia’s approved pickup list everywhere that matters, and she’ll be Sofia’s secondary emergency contact if Maggie can’t be reached.

Alex will have taken a trip down to Tijuana with Maggie and Sofia and Maggie will learn, then, that she’ll have used her professional development hours budget for the past six months not to develop proficiency in some new weapon, as she normally does, but to start learning Spanish.

She won’t be fluent. Not by a long shot. And Sofia’s parents both speak excellent English, so they’ll be happy to speak English at the dinner table during the visit. But Alex will know that Sofia values the chance to speak Spanish with her parents, so she will, in her grammatically-imperfect way, encourage it, and she’ll be able to follow the broad arcs of conversations and to contribute a little.

Maggie will fall more in love with her than she ever has. Even more than she was the first time, before the breakup, before their four-year hiatus.

They’ll be approaching their one-year anniversary and Maggie will know that she’s ready: she wants to propose.

She’ll plan to do it at their anniversary dinner. They’ll already have a nice reservation and they’ll have planned for Sofia to stay at a friend’s house that night.

But before she can do that: she’ll take Sofia out for lunch, two weeks before the anniversary date.

“What would you think,” she’ll ask, “if I asked Alex to marry me?”

Maggie will expect grinning, maybe clapping, some eleven-year-old giddiness, because she knows Sofia has always sort of assumed that Maggie and Alex would get married eventually.

But instead, she’ll be met with Sofia’s Very Serious Face. Pancho, who a moment earlier will have been a hedgehog, will seem to suddenly vanish; Maggie will realize a second later that he turned into a mosquito and is buzzing around Sofia’s ear.

“Let me think about it,” she’ll say.

Maggie, taken aback, will try not to be saddened. “Okay,” she’ll reply. “Take all the time you need, and, you know, if you have questions you can ask me anything.”

A day will pass, then another. Sofia won’t bring it up again.

On the fourth day, while Alex is dealing with an evening emergency at the DEO, Maggie will approach Sofia again. “I’m not rushing you at all,” she’ll say, “I’m just wondering if maybe you could tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“I’m just _thinking_ ,” Sofia will insist. “This is an important decision. I’m taking it _seriously_.”

“Okay,” Maggie will say, admonished, “okay.”

Three, four more days will tick by, and their anniversary will be five days away, and Maggie will begin to resign herself to the fact that she won’t propose that day, because she’s not going to buy a ring until Sofia gives her an OK, and so she’s fast running out of time.

The anniversary dinner reservation will be scheduled on a Saturday.

Alex will be injured at work on the Thursday before.

Maggie will get the call from Winn. Alex is okay, but she’s in surgery getting a pretty bad abdominal wound stitched up and her fractured tibia set. Something about a Phlebian throwing her into a concrete retaining wall down by the docks when she decided to provide a distraction to allow Supergirl a moment to recover her bearings.

Dammit, Maggie will think. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

She’ll call James, ask him to pick up Sofia after school and bring her to the DEO. Then she’ll call the school and tell them to expect him.

When she arrives at the DEO, Alex will be out of surgery and asleep in the same bed where she’d laid after Malverne’s damn tank. She’ll look yellow and waxen and clammy, a saline drip hooked up to an IV line in the back of her hand. Curie will be asleep near her shoulder, her wings limp, anaesthetized. Supergirl will be standing there, arms crossed over her chest. Hansel will be perched at the foot of Alex’s bed, his hands clenched together.

“She lost a lot of blood,” Supergirl will say, “but the DEO requires all agents to bank a few pints for situations exactly like this. Hamilton says she looks worse than she is. She’ll need to rest a few days and her leg will be in a cast for awhile, but she’ll be okay.”

Supergirl will look at Maggie. “Stay with her? I need to debrief with J’onn.”

Maggie, speechless, will just nod.

Supergirl will leave, and Maggie will sag onto the stool beside Alex’s bed. Eduardo will jump up onto the bed and curl along Alex’s uninjured side, laying his tail gently across her body to warm her. Maggie will carefully, so gently, pick up Curie and cradle her to her chest, half tucked into her jacket.

It’ll only take half an hour for the anaesthesia to begin to wear off. Alex will slowly, disoriented, begin to blink awake.

“Hey,” Maggie will murmur.

Groggy, Alex will fumble a hand up to pet Eduardo, and even that subtle touch will echo through Maggie’s body. “Hey,” she’ll murmur back.

And then Alex will doze off again.

She’ll still be asleep twenty minutes later when James shows up with Sofia, who will take sight of Alex, injured and sick-looking on the bed, and start to cry. Pancho will turn into a mink and he’ll scamper up to drape himself over her neck, like a warm blanket to comfort her.

“Hey,” Maggie will say, carefully opening her free arm toward Sofia. “Hey. C’mere.”

Sofia will stumble over to her and collapse against her side.

“She’s okay,” Maggie will say gently. “She got hurt, and I know she looks bad, but she’s gonna be okay.”

Over Sofia’s head, Maggie will meet James’ questioning eyes, and nod at him: yes, she means what she’s saying. Yes, Alex will be okay. His shoulders drop a little in relief.

Maggie will hold the girl tightly, letting her cry out all of her tears.

“Maggie,” they’ll hear, from the bed, and they’ll both turn their heads. Alex will be awake again. She’ll slide her arm out from where it’s pinched between Eduardo and her side, and she’ll reach it out toward them.

Sofia will wince at the pale, yellowish skin as though it were contagious.

Maggie will smile, and reach out, and take Alex’s hand. “How are you doing, babe?"  
  
“Mmm, I’ve been better.” Then she’ll fix her droopy gaze on Sofia. “‘M gonna be okay. I promise.”

Sofia will nod, but she won’t look convinced. “What happened?” she’ll ask quietly.

“She saved my life, again.”

Maggie and Sofia will both turn their heads at the voice coming from behind them. They won’t have noticed Supergirl entering the room.

Sofia’s eyes will go wide. “Supergirl?”

Supergirl will smile at her. And then Sofia will scowl. “Wait. _Kara_. Why are you dressed like Supergirl?”

And Maggie will bark out a laugh, louder than she intended, and James will chortle, and Alex, on her bed, will wheeze a little and then mutter “ow.”

Kara will shake her head and smile. “Oh, Sof. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Hey, Sofia,” Alex will call quietly, and Sofia will turn her head back toward the bed. Alex will hold out a hand, beckoning her, and Sofia will slip out from under Maggie’s arm to approach with the nervous tension that children always bring to hospitals.

Alex will beckon Sofia closer, and closer, until Alex can cup a hand around Sofia’s ear to whisper something to her. Maggie will see Sofia’s eyes go wide, bright, and she’ll break into a smile.

“Sure,” Kara will say, smiling, because of course, she could hear what Alex said even though Maggie couldn’t. Sofia will grin and run to Kara, and Kara will take her hand and they’ll both walk out of the med bay.

Maggie will watch them walk out the door and then turn back to Alex. “What was that?”

Alex will look from Maggie out toward the main DEO atrium, at Kara and Sofia’s retreating backs. “An excuse for them to have the Supergirl conversation.”

Curie will resettle herself under Maggie’s jacket, against her stomach, and Eduardo will lay his chin on the upper, bony part of Alex’s chest, and Alex’s eyes will drift closed again.

James will step forward and settle a warm hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “You okay? Need anything? Coffee, a bite to eat?”

Maggie will shake her head. “Thanks. You’ve been such a help by bringing Sofia here.”

“Oh, well, you know how much I hate spending time with Sofia.”

Supergirl will return with Sofia a few minutes later. Sofia’s face will be split in an enormous, giddy grin.

“Maggie!” she’ll exclaim, “ _Kara_ is _Supergirl!_ ”

Maggie will smile softly. “Pretty awesome, right?”

“Yeah!”

The conversation will wake Alex again, who will blink a little blearily at them, and then seem to startle herself awake.

“Did you do it?” she’ll ask Sofia, suddenly seeming very clear-headed and present.

Sofia will nod, and grin, and rush toward Alex’s outstretched hand. She’ll pull a crumpled paper bag out of her pocket and press it into Alex’s palm.

(Maggie will only sort of notice the shuffle of feet as Kara tugs James out of the room, and closes the door behind them.)

Alex will set the paper bag in her lap and fumble for the bed controls, raising the back until it’s almost upright.

“Careful,” Maggie will say gently, reaching toward Alex’s torso to steady her.

“It’s okay,” Alex will reply.

Eduardo will sit up, his hind end still nestled against Alex’s thigh, and squint his little eyes at her. She’ll scratch him gently on the back of the neck and then open the crumpled paper bag, reach inside--

And Maggie will swear her heart stops when Alex pulls out a small wooden box.

“I blew this last time,” Alex says quietly. “I did it on impulse. I didn’t think it through. And so when I -- when I decided I wanted to do it again, I thought about it really, really carefully.”

Maggie’s heart is going to beat out of her chest. “Alex--”

“Please,” Alex rushes on, “please let me get this out, because I don’t want to -- I don’t to lose my nerve or forget anything.”

Maggie’s jaw snaps shut and she nods, eyes watering. Alex reaches toward Maggie with her other hand, the one with the IV in the back, and Maggie takes it gently, lets it sit in her quiet grip.

“I was going to do it on Saturday, at our anniversary dinner,” Alex continues, “I bought some new dress pants specifically for it, instead of a dress, so I could get down on one knee in front of everyone in that fancy restaurant, because I know you always wanted the ritual and the performance and I want you to have everything you want. But then this happened and, well,” Alex will shrug in apology, “I think we’re going to have to reschedule our date, and I won’t be able to kneel for awhile anyway.”

“It’s okay, Alex, it’s okay.” Maggie’s voice will come out a hoarse whisper. She’ll feel her nose starting to run.

“But I don’t want to wait,” Alex will say, wide-eyed and earnest. “I don’t want to face down tomorrow’s news, let alone the next raging alien, without you knowing that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And that I’ve thought about it really, really carefully this time. If we decide to have another kid, that’s great, but I know I don’t need it. I have everything I want with you and Sofia.”

(Beside them, Sofia will be nearly vibrating with excitement, Pancho a white dove fluttering around her head.)

Maggie will feel dizzy. Her eyes will be watering. Curie will be looking up at her face from her arms. Eduardo will look back and forth between Alex and Maggie, frantically.

Alex will fumble a little with the box, one-handed, her other still resting in Maggie’s, until, “Sofia?” she’ll ask. “Little help?”

Sofia will dart forward and open the wooden lid and set it back in Alex’s hand, still grinning. She’ll stand beside them with her feet together, her hands behind her back, a little soldier at attention.

The ring will be simpler this time. No stones, just a wide, silver-colored band, in a box for an ethical jeweler downtown that Maggie herself had googled just two days ago.

It seems their taste in rings, just like everything else about them, has matured a little.

“Will you marry me, Maggie?” Alex will ask, holding out the ring in the box, her eyes locked on Maggie’s. “Please marry me.”

And Maggie wll launch herself forward, remembering at the last moment to be mindful of Alex’s injuries, and will press a slow, sweet kiss to Alex’s clammy, waxy lips.

“Yes,” she’ll breathe. “Yes, I will.”

Curie will weasel her way out of Maggie’s arms and fly a happy circle over their heads before settling down nestled in Eduardo’s fur.

Laughing, and crying, Alex will fumble with the ring and slip it onto Maggie’s finger. Sofia will be bouncing on her toes beside them, and they’ll open their arms to pull her into the hug.

“See?” Sofia will say to Alex when they pull apart, “I _told_ you she’d say yes!”

“Wait -- you _knew_?” Maggie sputters.

Alex laughs a little, and then coughs. (“Easy,” Maggie will soothe.) “Of course she knew. I took her out to Dairy Queen to ask her if she’d be okay with it.”

Maggie’s heart will stutter and stop and then leap into action again with a jolt, double-time.

And then Maggie will consider Sofia’s reluctance, her refusal to answer Maggie’s question about proposing to Alex. “...when did you two have this conversation?”

“Hmm,” Alex’s eyes dart from Maggie to Sofia. “About a month ago, was it?”

Sofia nods. “Yeah.”

And Maggie will huff out a laugh, and mock-glare at Sofia.

_That’_ s why Sofia will refuse to answer Maggie: she’ll have been protecting Alex’s proposal plans.

“C’mere, you knucklehead,” Maggie will say, opening an arm to her again, and Sofia will grin, and fall into Maggie’s hug, giggling.

Alex will be ready to give Maggie everything she wants: the big wedding, the band, the open bar, the long guest list, to the point that it will begin to make Maggie uncomfortable. A month into their engagement, when Alex will have begun to create a list of large venues, Maggie will sit her down at the kitchen table after Sofia’s gone to bed.

“This is for both of us,” Maggie will say. “I’m not okay with you just giving me everything you think I want.”

“I just want to marry you,” Alex will insist. “I don’t care how anymore. How, where, how many people, I don’t care about any of it anymore if I get to marry you.”

“Would you go for something this elaborate if it weren’t what you thought I wanted?”

“No, but--”

“But nothing, Alex. This isn’t for _me_ , it’s for _us_. And, I don’t know, I’m older now. I don’t want the same things I wanted last time, when I was 30.”

They’ll have their ceremony on the beach, in Midvale, with two dozen friends and family members. J’onn will officiate. Kara will witness for Alex, and James will witness for Maggie.

Tía Rosa and AJ will fly in for the occasion.

Supergirl will fly down to Tijuana and bring back Sofia’s parents, just for the weekend, on a visit that everyone will understand border control doesn’t need to hear about.

Maggie and Alex will both wear dresses. Neither of them will be white. They’ll have a laptop with a playlist, not a DJ or a band, and neither of them will be wearing shoes. They’ll have enough food for twice as many people catered down to the beach, because half of it will be for Kara.

They _will_ entertain the quaint tradition of not seeing each other on the day of the wedding. Alex will spend the day with Kara at their mother’s house, and Maggie will spend the day at a little hotel in town with James and her Tia and AJ, and Winn will hop back and forth between places, and Sofia will be with her parents at the Danvers home as well.

Winn will show up before they walk down to the beach, holding a wrapped box.

“I know it’s not traditional to open gifts on the wedding day, but this is something I think you’re going to want today.”

Maggie will open the box and furrow her brows at what she finds inside. She’ll lift it carefully: a piece of heavy leather, a rich brown, beautifully tooled, with a long strap with a buckle, like a soft belt, attached to it.

Winn will show her: the leather piece fits over her shoulder, over the thin strap of her dress, the belt crossing her chest to fasten beneath the opposite arm.

“I made it for you,” Winn will say. “Wear it today. Trust me.”

She’ll trust him. It makes her feel a bit like a shieldmaiden in some fantasy movie, but she’ll trust him.

At the designated hour, they’ll walk down to the beach, Eduardo looking dapper in a bow tie. When she arrives, Alex will already be there, waiting for her, and very suddenly, Maggie will understand the shoulder piece:

Because Curie, strings of glittering beads looped around her ankles, will immediately soar over to Maggie, that long, breathtaking distance that she can travel away from Alex, to perch on the protector on Maggie’s shoulder, her long talons digging in for a solid grip, and she’ll rub her head lovingly into the crook of Maggie’s jaw.

She’ll stay there for the whole ceremony, the whole reception, perched on Maggie’s shoulder.

Eduardo, jealous, will throw himself up into Alex’s arms, and she’ll catch him and help him drape across the bare skin of her shoulders, around the back of her neck, and he’ll stay there until he becomes too heavy and Alex has to sit down and let him sit on her lap for awhile.

(Maggie’s knees will buckle, just a bit, whenever Eduardo touches Alex’s skin.)

(She’ll never quite get used to that, in the best possible way.)

Their wedding rings will be their engagement rings. Maggie will have bought one for Alex from the same jeweler where Alex bought hers, a band of repurposed white gold tooled in a beautiful pattern of twists and knots.

Alex will dance with Sofia, holding hands, arms long, spinning circles in the sand.

AJ will try to convince Maggie to stand on his feet to dance together. Maggie will laugh, and say, “I just got married, AJ. How about we just dance like grown-ups this time?”

He’ll laugh, and he’ll agree.

Maggie will dance the most with Alex, foreheads touching, bodies together, their daemons circling them like they don’t care which human is technically theirs.

That night, full of food and love and friends and just enough alcohol, they’ll lie in a hotel bed, too tired to have sex, both daemons half-dozing between their feet while the humans press their foreheads together.

“After everything,” Alex will murmur, “We’re here now.”

“Always,” Maggie will reply, even as her eyelids droop with sleep and she shares breaths with her new wife. “We’re here always.”

And they will be.

They’ll keep working with aliens.

They’ll do their best, together, to raise Sofia. Alex will adopt her legally not long after the wedding. She'll teach her about the constellations, and take her camping, and teach her to surf until Sofia becomes a better surfer than she is. (When she's fifteen, she'll come second in a statewide surfing competition for girls aged 13-17.) Alex will help her with science and math homework and Maggie will help proofread her English and History essays. She'll become a pretty great softball player after Maggie spends hours with her in the city park throwing long balls to help with her fielding.

They’ll consider having another kid, but will decide, ultimately, not to. When Sofia grows up and leaves for college in San Francisco, they’ll both cry.

They’ll spend Chanukahs with the Danvers and Christmases in Tijuana so that Sofia never has to choose which of her families to spend the holiday with. They’ll go to Atlanta every summer to see AJ and Tía Rosa.

They’ll fight, sometimes, as couples do, but they’ll make up, every time.

Four years apart will shrink into a speck alongside the breadth of their life together.

They’ll be here, now, for every _now_ that follows every other _now_ as it becomes a _then_ ; for every _we will_ that becomes a _we are_ and then a _we were,_ followed up by another _we will._

They’ll be here, always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for enduring all this future tense, guys. I didn't intend to write like 10,000 words of future tense; I intended to write like 1,500, but these girls ran away with me and then I just... wasn't going to go back and re-conjugate 35 pages or whatever it was. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's stuck around for this unexpectedly long ride. 
> 
> Sanvers 4eva.


End file.
